Is YouTube’s safety mode safe? Not very

Unfortunately,for me,the filter didn’t work. But because no two people share the same standard,here’s a short exercise so you can judge for yourself. You need a computer,a browser and a live Internet connection.

Start by going to YouTube. Scroll to the bottom of any page,and click on ‘Safety mode: Off’,and change the setting to ‘On’,followed by ‘Save’. If you want to make the change stick for your browser,click ‘Save and lock on this browser’,which requires that you enter your YouTube password. Search on an obvious word,like ‘sex’,and you should see the message ‘no results found’. Now you know the Safety Mode is working. Next,start thinking like a bored middle-schooler,say with a few hours to kill after school. Here are the terms I searched on,followed by what I found. Keep in mind that YouTube content continually changes,so the examples I used might be flagged and blocked by the time you try.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board,a nonprofit industry,self-regulatory group,sifts video game content. Its M rating is for games that “have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older”,and that may “contain intense violence,blood and gore,sexual content and/or strong language”. Would Safety Mode let me find one of the controversial scenes involving a prostitute from the game Grand Theft Auto,which the board considers M?

I searched on ‘GTA prostitute’,and ‘GTA IV – Everything With a Prostitute’ was in the first screen of results,along with 137 other choices. The title of this video was accurate in describing the contents. So while you may not permit M-rated games in your home,Safety Mode allows your middle-schooler to watch them.

What about content that the Motion Picture Association of America gives an R rating? I typed in ‘Hurt Locker’ to find 3,510 clips from the movie,including the unedited ‘Epic Explosion Screen’,which depicts in graphic detail the death of a US soldier as he tries to run from a bomb. And while Safety Mode blocks searches on the word ‘sex’,it curiously doesn’t stop ‘sex scenes’. Among the 7,460 results I found for that search was “Elmo’s World,Behind the Scenes,” which starts as a regular-looking Sesame Street segment,but transitions into an adult-oriented skit. Other choices that came up on the first page of my search included dancers disrobing seductively to the edge of pornography,as the names of pornographic sites flashed on the screen. If you have any stomach left,test the filter on ‘liposuction’. I’ll spare the details.

If Safety Mode can’t stop this stuff,what does it do? I e-mailed this question,along with a list of some of the videos I found,to Mandy Albanese from Google’s global communication and public policy division. “Our Safety Mode filters use a variety of signals to limit content,from the actual content of the video to its view count,” she replied. “If a video has recently been uploaded,for example,our technology may not have filtered it yet.” She added: “We’re not getting into the business of children’s media. Safety Mode is not meant to create a G-rated experience,and no filter is 100% accurate.”

So what’s a modern parent to do? First,admit that unless you lock your child inside a closet,you can’t protect him or her from digital culture.

Still,this is not a time when ignorance is bliss. Fortunately,YouTube makes it easy to learn its tricks,with videos on how to use Safety Mode. Also,Facebook has recently simplified its safety settings. Learning how these services work with your child makes it possible to try a new approach. Rather than creating a wall around your child with a filter,they can learn to build their own wall,by flagging the content that matches their internal definition of ‘inappropriate’.

Finally,it never hurts to think like a middle-schooler.