13+
Minimum age
What do you think is the right age for YouTube?Share your thoughts
YouTube is a place to watch, create and share videos. You can create your own YouTube account, make a music playlist, and even create your own channel, which means you will have a public profile, and it allows you to comment on videos and create video playlists. For younger children there is a separate YouTube for Kids site, with child friendly videos.
What do I need to know about YouTube?
We’ve joined forces with O2 to find out what parents of 8-12 year olds think about YouTube. We’ve also asked young people what they think. Here’s what they said:
What do children and young people say to look out for:
23% of the children and young people we asked think YouTube can be risky. The top 3 concerns were:
Why kids like it:
The top 3 reasons why children and young people liked YouTube were:
Parents say:
"No age checks. All information can be forged. A mobile phone number is asked for but is only sometimes needed for confirming the account."
We asked parents of 8-12 year olds how easy it would be for an 11 year old child to pretend to be a different age to sign up, and whether any checks were in place.
Parents say:
"Reporting videos is fairly easy using a drop down menu below each video. The menu labelled 'more' could be more prominent."
We asked parents of 8-12 year olds about reporting unsuitable content, blocking unwanted messages or people, and about moderation on YouTube.
Parents say:
"Most privacy settings were on by default. Those that weren't were easy to change from the settings menu. Videos are made private at the time of uploading."
We asked parents of 8-12 year olds to find and adjust YouTube’s settings to keep their personal information private.
Read YouTube information on how to change privacy settings for videos and playlists.
Boy
"Some people put nasty, very rude and racist and offensive videos on it."
Girl
"You can watch anything and find information easily. They monitor what can be uploaded to the website."
Girl
"You can watch anything you want and upload anything you want . It is a site for all ages, anything bad you have to be over 18 to watch - and also adults can put safety things on your accounts and see what you watch."
Unknown
"Make sure parental control is used."
Mum
"There are lots of educational videos and videos for kids, but it depends what you search. There are videos that are not suitable for a younger audience and some people upload these sort of videos without putting an age reading on them."
Unknown
"Youtube is alternative TV. You can learn from it, be entertained by it and even become a celebrity in your own right if you create content for it. It is, however, used by everyone and anyone meaning there is questionable content on it."
x
x
YouTube
"YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small."
x
x
13+
YouTube says
This is taken from YouTube’s own guidelines and is accurate as of March 2016.
13+
Our panel says
Based on our independent panel surveyed in December 2015.
10+
Children say
Based on 1725 responses children and young people we asked in December 2015.
10+
Parents say
Based on 1060 votes from parents who have visited this site – you can vote too!
53% of reviewers reported seeing content that might be unsuitable for children aged 8-12 on this site. Here are the types of inappropriate content that they reported:
Sexual
Violence and hatred
Bullying
Suicide and self-harm
Other
Parents reported seeing violent, sexual and adult content on their site.
Children and young people reported seeing violence, bullying, and adult content as their main concerns over content.
Unknown
"Adult pornography films appear in a list as soon as you search for them."
Unknown
"The site is used by people of all ages. It's unsurprising adult themed content can be found."
Unknown
"There are videos of real life and fictional violence (acts of terrorism for example). These videos begin with a disclaimer. There are filters you can switch on to stop content like this appearing though."
Girl
"It's bad because some people put scary pictures of things that might frighten you."
Girl
"People who create videos may get hate. People are able to upload videos of anything- could be hate/ controversial/ discriminative."
Girl
"If no parental control, inappropriate videos may be watched."
We know it can be awkward but no amount of information beats talking to your children about their experiences online.
I know you love going online, which bits do you like best?Other relevant resources:
Ask.fm
Ask.fm is a site where you can ask people questions. You can choose to ask them anonymously.
DeviantArt
DeviantArt is an online community where you can post your art and comment on other people’s work.
FMyLife
FMyLife is an online community where you can post a short caption about an unfortunate incident that has happened during your day.
See all
You can help us keep this guide up to date. So if your children are using a site, app or game that we haven’t covered yet, let us know and we’ll consider featuring it in our next update.
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