How To Activate YouTube Restrict­ed Mode: Protect Your Kids From Sensitive Content

No doubt, YouTube is the largest video platform in the world, and it has more than 1 billion users from various countries. Since YouTube is owned by Google, one can easily realize its popularity. That also means they let you watch and upload different types of video content on the platform, the types that may not be suitable for your kids. YouTube has its own ‘common-sense rules’ – their Community Guidelines for the content creators and its own YouTube Restrict­ed Mode.

These rules decide whether or not the content is appropriate to upload on the platform. These guidelines help the content creators or video-makers to be aware of nudity or sexual content, hateful content, harmful or dangerous content, and violent or graphic content. And this content is not appropriate for minors (below 18 years of age.) That’s why, to save your children from accessing this stuff, parents turn on the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode. Here, we are going to talk about how to turn on the YouTube restricted mode on Android, iOS, and PC.

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What is YouTube Restrict­ed Mode? How Does it Work?

You can enable the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode website or YouTube Android or iOS app. Once enabled it will restrict the availability of potentially mature or objectionable content on the platform. YouTube uses an automatic algorithms system to filter content through YouTube Restrict­ed Mode that doesn’t follow the YouTube guidelines. 

The algorithms check different elements of the content, including title, language, metadata, etc., to determine whether or not the videos are appropriate for the platform. These metadata include upload date, creator, video description, and tagged keywords, but the algorithm system is not always perfect. And through the Restricted mode, human reviewers check the rating of the content and filter them out if they find it inappropriate. These employees manually check the videos and ‘flagged’ them in the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode.

Since millions of content are being uploaded to YouTube per minute, it’s impossible to check them all in a few minutes. But if you turn on the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode, you can be sure that your children are safe from viewing inappropriate adult or violent content. 

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How To Enable YouTube Restrict­ed Mode

No matter how much you rely on technology, it’s not going to be 100% effective. But if you follow the tips mentioned below, you can be assured that they will support your children in staying safe and secure online.

• Though the filter is on, try to watch the videos together with your child and talk about it to create a special bond in your relationship.
• Try to report any content that does not obey YouTube community guidelines. It will help you keep your children safe in the future.
• Try to turn off the Autoplay feature on YouTube to help assure that your children aren’t watching any harmful content when you are not around.
• Teach your children how to let go of the content that they don’t like to watch and encourage them to talk about it with you. 

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Enable YouTube Restrict­ed Mode Desktop or Laptop

You can easily enable the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode no matter whether you are using Windows or Mac. But enabling the mode is limited to the browser only, which means, if you watch YouTube with your kid through Google Chrome and you enable the feature on Google Chrome only, it will restrict the content on Chrome. But if you have other browsers like Mozilla, Opera, etc., and you open YouTube on them with the same Google account, your children can view those harmful content. So, you will have to enable the mode separately on each browser. And here are the steps to follow if you want to turn on the YouTube Restrict­ed Mode.

1. Open YouTube on your browser 
2. On the right-hand side, you will find your user icon. Click on it.
3. At the bottom of the menu, there is an option called “Restricted mode”. 
4. If it’s off, it will show you ‘Off.’ If it’s on, it will inform you so.
5. Click on it to turn on the feature
6. A dialogue box will appear from where you can choose to on or off the feature.

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Enable YouTube Restrict­ed Mode on Android Devices

This guide is for Youtube App on Android.

1. You are probably already logged in to your Gmail account on your smartphone. If not, sign in first and then open YouTube. Or if your device is not signed in to Gmail already, you can do that right here.
2. Once signed in, click on your user icon from the top right corner
3. Then click on Settings and then General
4. Here you will find Restricted mode; once you do, toggle On the option

In case you are not using the Youtube app and accessing Youtube using a browser. To enable YouTube Restrict­ed Mode you need to click on your profile icon on the Top Right-hand side, then select Settings, then under Account you will see the toggle for Restricted Mode.

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How to Enable Restricted Mode on iOS Devices?

If you are using an iPhone or iPad, you can access YouTube, and once you do, you may also be required to enable the Restricted feature. Here is how to do it-

1. Open YouTube
2. On the top-right corner, click on your user-icon
3. Tap on Settings
4. Look for Restricted Mode Toggle
5. Enable the toggle to turn on Restricted Mode

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What to Do If You Can’t Turn on or off Restricted Mode?

We don’t see any potential trouble in enabling the restricted mode no matter what device you are using. However, sometimes computers in libraries, schools, universities, or any other public institutions keep the restricted mode enabled by the system administrator. Here, you may have a problem disabling the feature, but you can not do anything other than contact the system administrator. In general, you can turn off the feature the same way you turned it on from your profile.

If your child is using YouTube Kids, there is no option for enabling Restricted mode as the app does not offer those types of unwatchable anti-children content. So, it is better to use YouTube for Kids instead of the normal YouTube version that we browse every day if the safety of your child is concerned. 

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