YouTube has introduced a safety mode, designed to help parents keep their children from seeing objectionable content.
The safety mode option is somewhat hidden away in the bottom left-hand corner of YouTube’s homepage, and once activated makes a number of changes to the site intended to keep children safe while browsing.
The biggest change is that YouTube will begin filtering out videos with objectionable content, such as a “newsworthy video that contains graphic violence such as a political protest or war coverage”.
Safety mode will also completely block searches for keywords that are on its blacklist, including “naked” and “porn”.
Alongside the filter, safety mode also hides comments by default and though a simple click will reveal them again, offensive words will be asterisked.
Google admits the controls aren’t foolproof, but says the service is a decent first step. “While no filter is 100% perfect, Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site,” the company says on the Google blog.
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