Child Safety Policy
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Child safety policy
YouTube does not allow unauthorized impersonation of a person, entity, or channel that may mislead viewers in a way that could harm the YouTube community. Impersonation may include deceptively copying the branding, content, or usernames of individuals, channels or entities. It may also include using AI to copy the voice or likeness of an individual, to make it appear as if the channel is owned or authorized by that individual. YouTube also enforces trademark holder rights.
- The page also states that YouTube does not allow unauthorized impersonation that may mislead viewers Content & IP Rights
Update: Content that targets young minors and families but contains sexual themes, violence, obscene, or other mature themes not suitable for young audiences, is not allowed on YouTube. In addition to your titles, descriptions, and tags, ensure your audience selection matches the audience your content is suitable for.
- Content aimed at young children and families may not contain sexual, violent, obscene or other mature themes Content & IP Rights
YouTube doesn’t allow content that endangers the emotional and physical well-being of minors. A minor is someone under 18 years old.
- The rules cover every YouTube product and feature, including external links, and the list is not complete Content & IP Rights
- YouTube does not allow content that endangers the emotional or physical well-being of anyone under 18 Content & IP Rights
If you find content that violates this policy, report it. If you believe that a child is in danger, you should get in touch with your local law enforcement to report the situation immediately.
- Report violating content to YouTube, and contact local law enforcement immediately if a child is in danger Content & IP Rights
Instructions for reporting violations of our Community Guidelines are available here. If you've found multiple videos or comments that you would like to report, you can report the channel.
- Report violating content to YouTube, and contact local law enforcement immediately if a child is in danger Content & IP Rights
In some cases, we may make exceptions for content with educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, including content that is in the public’s interest.
- YouTube does not allow content that endangers the emotional or physical well-being of anyone under 18 Content & IP Rights
- YouTube may make exceptions for educational, documentary, scientific, artistic or public-interest content Content & IP Rights
- Content aimed at young children and families may not contain sexual, violent, obscene or other mature themes Content & IP Rights
What this policy means for you
If you're posting content
Don’t post content on YouTube if it fits any of the descriptions below.
- The rules cover every YouTube product and feature, including external links, and the list is not complete Content & IP Rights
- Sexualization of minors: Sexually explicit content featuring minors and content that sexually exploits minors including minor nudity posted with comedic intent. We report content containing child sexual abuse imagery to the [National Center for Missing and Exploited Children](https://www.missingkids.com/home), who work with global law enforcement agencies.
- Harmful or dangerous acts involving minors: Content showing a minor participating in dangerous activities or encouraging minors to do dangerous activities, particularly if someone watching could imitate the dangerous act or if the content encourages or praises the dangerous act. Never put minors in harmful situations that may lead to injury, including dangerous stunts, challenges, dares, or pranks. Dangerous acts include, but are not limited to, any act in the categories listed under Extremely Dangerous challenges, such as asphyxiation or electrocution.
- Examples include content that shows minors:
- Drinking alcohol
- Using vaporizers, e-cigarettes, tobacco, or marijuana
- Misusing fireworks
- Using firearms unsupervised
- Inflicting or advocating for the infliction of physical, sexual or emotional maltreatment or neglect of a child, including inflicting emotional distress on minors.
- Content that contains infliction of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of a child within an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context and with blurring may receive an exception.
- Content that could cause minor participants or viewers emotional distress, including:
- Exposing minors to mature themes
- Simulating parental abuse
- Coercing minors
- Violence
- Misleading family content: Content that targets young minors and families, but contains:
- Sexual themes
- Violence
- Obscenity or other mature themes not suitable for young audiences
- Medical procedures
- Self harm
- Use of adult horror characters
- Other inappropriate themes intended to shock young audiences
- Content that targets young minors and families with age-inappropriate themes within an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context may receive an exception. This is not a pass to target young minors and families with mature themes intended to shock young audiences.
- Family friendly cartoons that target young minors and contain adult or age-inappropriate themes such as violence, sex, death, drugs, and more. We don’t allow content labeled as suitable for kids in the video's title, description, tags, or in the audience selection if it contains age-inappropriate themes.
- Make sure your titles, descriptions, and tags match the audience you're targeting. In addition, ensure your audience selection accurately represents the audience your content is suitable for. You can also age restrict your content upon upload if it’s intended for mature audiences.
- Cyberbullying, harassment, and doxxing of minors: Content that:
- Intends to shame, deceive or insult a minor
- Reveals a minor’s personal information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, regardless of whether it is shared by others or the minor themself.
- Contains sexualization
- Encourages others to bully or harass
This policy applies to videos, video descriptions, comments, posts, live streams, playlists, and any other YouTube product or feature. Keep in mind that this isn't a complete list.
- The rules cover every YouTube product and feature, including external links, and the list is not complete Content & IP Rights
Please note these policies also apply to external links in your content. This can include clickable URLs, verbally directing users to other sites in video, as well as other forms.
- The rules cover every YouTube product and feature, including external links, and the list is not complete Content & IP Rights
Age-restricted content
We may add an age restriction to content that includes any of the following.
- YouTube may age restrict adults doing dangerous acts others could imitate; a warning may not prevent it Content & IP Rights
- YouTube may age restrict adult content resembling family content, and explicit language or heavy profanity Content & IP Rights
- Harmful or dangerous acts that adults or minors could imitate: Content containing adults participating in dangerous activities that adults or minors could easily imitate.
- Note: Simply saying, “Don’t try this at home” may not result in an exception. Learn more about age restricted Harmful or Dangerous content.
- Adult themes in family content: Content meant for adult audiences but could easily be confused with family content. This includes cartoons that contain adult themes such as violence, sex, or death. Remember you can age restrict your content upon upload if it’s intended for mature audiences.
- Vulgar language: Some language is not appropriate for younger audiences. Content using sexually explicit language or excessive profanity may lead to age restriction.
Content featuring minors
To protect minors on YouTube, content that doesn’t violate our policies but depicts children or is uploaded by minors may have some features disabled at both the channel and content level. These features may include:
- YouTube may disable comments, live features, recommendations and more on allowed content featuring or uploaded by minors Content & IP Rights
- YouTube may apply stricter standards to comments, posts and live chat on channels owned by or featuring minors Content & IP Rights
- Comments
- Live chat
- Live streaming
- Video recommendations (how and when your video is recommended)
- Posts
- Shorts Video remixing
- Views from signed-out users
Note:
- We may also apply stricter display standards to comments, posts, and live chat messages on channels owned by minors or associated with content depicting or uploaded by minors.
- Live streams with minors under 16 who are not visibly accompanied by an adult may be removed or have their live chat disabled. Channels not in compliance with this policy may temporarily or permanently lose their ability to live stream or access to other features.
- Live streams with minors under 16 and no visible adult may be removed; channels can lose live streaming Account & Service Control
How to protect minors in your content
Before posting content of yourself, your family, or friends, think carefully about whether it may put anyone at risk of negative attention. Minors are a vulnerable population, and YouTube has policies to protect them from unwanted attention.
- YouTube advises adult supervision, age-appropriate activities and attire, and privacy settings when posting minors Content & IP Rights
- Make sure the minor is supervised by an adult and is performing age-appropriate activities such as demonstrating hobbies, educational content or public performances.
- Make sure the attire worn is age-appropriate. Avoid attire that overexposes the minor or is form-fitting.
- Use YouTube's privacy settings to limit who can see the videos you post.
Don’t post content on YouTube that features minors and meets one or more of the following:
- Do not post minors filmed in bedrooms or bathrooms, soliciting strangers, or in activities drawing undesired attention Content & IP Rights
- Filmed in private spaces at home such as bedrooms or bathrooms.
- Features minors soliciting contact from strangers, dares or challenges online, or discussing adult topics.
- Shows activities that could draw undesired attention to the minor, such as performing body contortions or ASMR.
- Reveals personal details about a minor.
These are just some examples, you can get more best practices for child safety here. If you are under 18 or the applicable age of majority in your country, [Be internet awesome](https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/) can help you be safe online.
- YouTube advises adult supervision, age-appropriate activities and attire, and privacy settings when posting minors Content & IP Rights
- Do not post minors filmed in bedrooms or bathrooms, soliciting strangers, or in activities drawing undesired attention Content & IP Rights
Examples
Here are some examples of content not allowed on YouTube.
- Banned examples include sexual dares involving minors, minors with weapons or vapes, and kid-labeled shock cartoons Content & IP Rights
- Videos or posts featuring minors involved in provocative, sexual, or sexually suggestive activities, challenges and dares, such as kissing or groping.
- Showing minors involved in dangerous activities. For example, physical stunts, using weapons or explosives, or using a controlled substance like alcohol or nicotine including use of vapes or e-cigarettes.
- A video with tags like "for children", or whose audience is set to “Yes, it’s made for kids”, featuring family friendly cartoons engaging in inappropriate acts like injecting needles.
Remember these are just some examples, and don't post content if you think it might violate this policy.
- Banned examples include sexual dares involving minors, minors with weapons or vapes, and kid-labeled shock cartoons Content & IP Rights
More examples
- Offering money, praise, likes, or any other incentive to a minor to participate in physical contact with someone else.
- A video or post that advertises sexual content featuring minors or abusive content featuring minors.
- Predatory behavior involving communications with or about minors.
- Aggregating innocent content of minors for the purposes of sexual gratification.
- Fight or bullying content featuring kids without educational, documentary, scientific or artistic context and blurring.
- Challenges, pranks, or stunts that pose the risk of physical injury or serious emotional distress. You can learn more about what’s not allowed in our policies around challenges and pranks.
- Encouraging minors to participate in dangerous activities, even if there are no minors in the content.
- Content simulating parental abuse or abandonment, simulating exposure to death or violence, or causing minors intense shame or humiliation.
- Using cartoons, puppets, or family entertainment characters to appeal to children where content features adult themes like violence and sex.
What happens if content violates this policy
If your content violates this policy, we will remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If we can’t verify that a link you post is safe, we may remove the link. Note that violative URLs posted within the video itself or in the video’s metadata may result in the video being removed.
- Violating content is removed with an email notice; unverifiable links and violative URLs can lead to removal Content & IP Rights
If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you'll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. You will have the option to take a policy training to allow the warning to expire after 90 days. The 90 day period starts from when the training is completed, not when the warning is issued. However, if the same policy is violated within that 90 day window, the warning may not expire and your channel may be given a strike. If you violate a different policy after completing the training, you will get another warning.
- A first violation usually brings a warning training can clear after 90 days; 3 strikes in 90 days may end a channel Account & Service Control
If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel may be terminated. Learn more about our strikes system.
- A first violation usually brings a warning training can clear after 90 days; 3 strikes in 90 days may end a channel Account & Service Control
We may terminate your channel or account for repeated violations of the Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. We may also terminate your channel or account after a single case of severe abuse, or when the channel is dedicated to a policy violation. We may prevent repeat offenders from taking policy trainings in the future. Learn more about channel or account terminations.
- YouTube may terminate for repeated violations, one case of severe abuse, or a channel dedicated to violations Account & Service Control
We have zero tolerance for predatory behavior on YouTube. If we think a child is in danger based on reported content, we’ll help law enforcement investigate the content.
- Zero tolerance for predatory behavior; YouTube helps law enforcement when reported content suggests a child is in danger Legal Rights & Agreement Rules