What Is YouTube Restricted Mode and How to Activate It
YouTube calls this the restricted mode so that it is universally recognizable. Google has added this feature to YouTube to give users control over the type of content on their YouTube accounts.
With restricted mode, you can filter content that you do not want to see or expose your family members, even accidentally. So we will check what is the restricted mode and how you can get the most out of it.
Did you know: YouTube has more than 1.3 billion users and more than 5 billion videos are viewed daily on the platform.
What does the YouTube restriction mode do?
Restricted mode is a great tool used by YouTube to remove unwanted and mature content from your account. Regarding unwanted and mature content, YouTube ranks videos that have the following unwanted content:
- Substance abuse (drugs and alcohol)
- Sexual activities
- Violence – acts of violence, natural disasters and tragedies.
- Mature subjects (war, crime and political conflict) resulting in death or serious injury.
- Profane, inappropriate and mature languages, and
- Incendiary, inflammatory or degrading content
When restricted mode is enabled in your account, videos containing any of the above contents are captured by YouTube's algorithm and prevented from appearing in your account, even when you search for them.
YouTube has created it for individuals, organizations, libraries, schools, institutions, and public institutions that want better control over the content that they want (or than others) to watch and which are recommended. As the setting indicates, it is not 100% accurate and some videos may slip between the cracks.
By configuring Restricted Mode on your account, you restructure your account to provide a limited, but cleaner, safer, filtered, and controlled YouTube viewing experience.
Configuring YouTube Mobile Restriction Mode
We will first explain the process of configuring Restricted mode on the YouTube mobile app because the statistics (provided by Brandwatch) indicate that 70% of YouTube video views come from mobile devices. This means that people primarily visit YouTube from their mobile device.
Here's how to use the Restrict mode on the YouTube mobile app.
Step 1: Tap the picture of the account in the top right corner of the YouTube app to open the account menu.
2nd step: Select Settings.
Step 3: On the settings page, tap General.
Step 4: On the General Settings page, enable the Restricted Mode option.
Note: When you enable restricted mode on your mobile device, this only applies to the YouTube app on this device and not on other devices.
This means that if you still want restricted mode to be enabled when you use YouTube, you must enable the feature on all your devices.
Now let's see how to enable YouTube restricted mode on your PC.
Sift unwanted content
As previously stated, YouTube indicates that the restricted mode feature of the platform is not 100% accurate, but that it effectively filters out unwanted content from your YouTube feed. It is also an ideal feature to remove potentially harmful content from children and minors. If you do not use the feature yet, you should try it.
Then: YouTube regularly introduces new features on the platform. We've compiled a list of 5 great YouTube features that you may not know in 2020. You should take a look.