YouTube Kids provides videos suited to different age groups – ‘Preschool Mode’ for under 4 years olds, ‘Younger Mode’ for 5 to 8 year olds, and ‘Older Mode’ for 9 to 12 years olds. There is also the option to ‘Approve content yourself’ if parents use the YouTube Kids mobile app. To use YouTube Kids, a child can sign in with their own ‘supervised’ Google Account (which a parent can create in YouTube Family Centre or Google Family Link). Alternatively, their parent can create a YouTube Kids profile for their child and select their child’s age group. This means the child can only view videos that the app thinks are suitable for that age group or videos that the parent has already approved. A parent can also allow their child to search among millions of other videos on YouTube Kids. They can pay for a YouTube family plan to turn off adverts.
YouTube Kids uses software to check if videos are safe for children but this is not foolproof and not all videos have been checked by a human. Users can block and report an unsafe video or ‘channel’ (a YouTube profile that hosts videos).
The YouTube Kids app has parental controls features to manage whether their child can search for videos, what videos they can access and to limit their screen time. Parents can also see which videos their children have watched, turn off autoplay and prevent YouTube from storing their child’s ‘watch’ and ‘search’ history. Some of these controls can also be managed in YouTube Family Centre.
*Users under the age of 13 will require relevant permissions from parents/guardians
