- Hello friends, and welcome to some of our best information that we have for parents and caring adults, designed to help you create a safer digital environment for the children you love. This information will equip all caring adults as you help children use the internet with honor and integrity. So, how do parents like you control YouTube? This is a very popular question, since, according to recent usage data, YouTube is the most popular digital destination for teens, beating out both Instagram and Snapchat. Did you know that there are over 71,000 videos watched on YouTube every second, with over 300 hours of video uploaded every minute? The stats are mind-numbing, and in addition to hilarious cat videos, YouTube is also home to inappropriate content, including pornography. And because YouTube is one of the most popular destinations for kids and teens via their website or the app, it's important for parents and caring adults to understand its parental controls. If you're using a laptop or desktop computer, let's walk through YouTube's Restricted Mode. This means that you are accessing YouTube.com through a browser, like Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Unfortunately, as of October 2017, YouTube changed their laptop and desktop web interface, which removed the ability to lock Restricted Mode on browsers. Friends, this is a huge step backward for parents, who in the past rely heavily on the lock feature to prevent most pornographic content. YouTube is calling this October update their fresh look. But, there is a workaround for this change. If you go to YouTube.com and also are logged in with your Google account, which is also your Gmail account, simply click on your profile picture in the upper right corner. There, the bottom two options should be Restricted Mode Off/On, or Restore old YouTube. This restore option is what we would ask you to do. Then once you've restored old YouTube, you'll notice the old options at the bottom, where you can click on Restricted Mode On or Off. To turn Restricted Mode on, simply click on the arrow and choose On. You will then see a blue hyperlink with the words Lock Restricted Mode on this browser. If you don't use the lock setting and just choose Restricted Mode On, anyone will be able to turn Restricted Mode off. But if you click Lock Restricted Mode on this browser, you can lock those settings with your Google username and password to ensure nobody else can turn it off. You wanna make sure that you do not click Remember Password at any time for your Gmail sign-in information as this could allow a young person to change your lock settings. You've now locked Restricted Mode on one browser. In order for this to work on every browser, you must repeat this process for all browsers on the laptop or desktop. This means if you're on a Mac and you go through the steps above for Safari, but also have Chrome loaded onto the machine, then you'll follow these exact same steps by accessing YouTube.com through the Chrome browser. Unfortunately, navigating YouTube's parental controls through a smartphone, like an iPhone or Android, is completely different from what we just showed you on both desk and laptops. But there's some good news for mobile users who also use the Covenant Eyes Filter. With our patented monitoring technology, Covenant Eyes can lock Restricted Mode on YouTube across the entire device, which is great news for parents. This is done in My Account, which is our member dashboard, where the Filter Guardian for an account can lock YouTube Restricted Mode for the person they are holding accountable. You can find out more details about how this works in our helpful video How to Set Up Your Covenant Eyes Filter in the notes to this video. Outside of using Covenant Eyes, you can also set YouTube to Restricted Mode, but it's easy to turn off. On your iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, open the YouTube app. If you're using the app without being signed in, in the upper right corner, you'll see a gray and white generic profile image. If you click that and then click Settings, which looks like a gear, you'll see where you can click on Restricted Mode filtering. Your options are Don't Filter and Strict. You'll want to select Strict. If you're signed in, the steps are basically the same. There's just a slightly different look. You'll still click your name, then Settings, and then you're presented with the same Restricted Mode filtering option we just described. The frustrating issue for parents is that there's no way to lock these settings on the smartphone version of the app. Therefore, anyone can simply toggle the Restricted Mode off if they know where to find the toggle. It's for this reason that using Covenant Eyes makes so much sense, due to the added control our service provides to parents who have kids who love YouTube. As a Covenant Eyes Filter user, you have complete control over the Restricted Mode settings and can lock Restricted Mode, whether the child is using the YouTube app or is using YouTube. On your Android device, the steps are, once again, quite different. First, open the YouTube app and click on the profile picture circle in the upper right corner. Select Settings and then select General and scroll down to Restricted Mode, which you will toggle to the right to make it blue. You can then click on the back arrow in the upper left hand corner to exit settings and return to the main menu. The settings you choose will save automatically, but just like with Apple's iOS devices, there's no way to lock these Restricted Mode settings, which means a monitoring solution, like Covenant Eyes, can help parents stay on top of YouTube activity. Friends, thank you for taking a step towards making your home a safe haven by learning about YouTube's many intricacies. All caring adults have a role in forming our young people, and we hope this video will help you carry out this critical role. May God bless you.