RIYADH — To help alleviate parents’ worries about their child accessing troubling content while using YouTube — one of the most popular streaming services used by kids — Kaspersky has introduced the Safe Search in YouTube feature to its Kaspersky Safe Kids solution. When activated, the feature blocks search results of videos with unsuitable content, such as those with drugs, profanity or adult material. Nowadays children are one of YouTube’s core audiences with many of the most popular videos on the website aimed at young viewers. However, outside of kid-friendly videos, there are many adult themes that may have a tangible impact on kids’ behavior. In fact, according to the Kaspersky Family Report, 23% of parents in Saudi Arabia said their children had been exposed to content encouraging them to carry out violent or inappropriate actions. Therefore, parents need a trustworthy assistant that stops their children from accessing adult content, without taking up time or manual effort. To protect children from viewing risky videos while browsing the popular video streaming service, Kaspersky has introduced a new monitoring feature to its parental control app — Safe Search in YouTube. The feature is important for parents who care about what kind of content their kids see and what information they consume. While YouTube does allow parents to guard their kids from mature content via the restricted mode, they still acknowledge that the filters might not be 100% accurate. The Safe Search in YouTube feature notifies parents about inappropriate search results, so they can see what their kids have been looking for. This means parents can be confident that their children are prevented from finding any content that may be related to an inappropriate search term, such as materials that contain strong language or alcohol advertising products, not just a handful of videos. Additionally, the feature allows parents to ensure their children stay protected by giving them access to a list of videos or topics that have been searched for on YouTube. When the feature is enabled on a device, or in the YouTube app, if a child searches for any of the prohibited categories, the search results will be blocked. Restricted categories include adult content, alcohol, drugs, profanity and tobacco, as well as racist or prejudicial content. After blocking inappropriate YouTube search requests in the application, the child will see a message showing that the results may be unsafe because they contain content in one of the abovementioned categories. “Thanks to the pandemic, children are spending more time at home with limited activities to keep them busy. During this time, they are increasingly turning to YouTube to watch entertaining, funny and educational videos. “However, parents don’t necessarily have the time to check which videos their child is watching, and they want to keep them safe without continuously intruding on their life. With the new Kaspersky Safe Kids feature for YouTube, parents can be sure that kids can safely browse for videos without straying into adult content,” commented Elena Kadochnikova, product marketing manager at Kaspersky. Safe Search in YouTube is compatible with browsers on Windows, iOS & Android devices. It also works directly inside the official YouTube app on Android phones and tablets, meaning parents can be safe in the knowledge their children can browse the app without encountering troubling video content. — SG