Your Basket
How to protect your children from inappropriate content
Good parenting involves protecting loved ones from the darker aspects of the internet. So here’s some advice on how to stop your kids encountering offensive content online and blocking inappropriate websites and material from appearing on their devices.
What kind of inappropriate online content might my child be exposed to?
These are just some of the kinds of content that parents worry about appearing on their children’s smartphones or web browsers.
- Pornographic or overtly sexual content.
- Content that includes swearing and profanity.
- Websites that promote terrorism, racism, abuse, sexism, vandalism, eating disorders, violence, hate speech and suicide.
- Gambling sites.
- Unmoderated chatrooms.
- Images, videos or games that depict casual violence and brutality.
How to block inappropriate websites on a phone?
Stopping the rot is the first step in tackling cyberbullying or any offensive online behaviour. It’s therefore useful for parents to know exactly how to block inappropriate material on all their child’s favourite online platforms. If you recognise an indiscretion, you can rectify and report it immediately. Having an open conversation with your kids is also considered extremely helpful here.
Then, hopefully, you would be able to discuss all the risks involved and come to a quick understanding of what exposure they might have had to harmful content. Naturally, this is a difficult topic to bring up and handle for any parent. And when you’ve had those conversations, here’s some practical advice on blocking, for various platforms. Let’s start with the most popular and work down.
There’s no sure-fire method to stop your child encountering inappropriate content on social media sites like Instagram, but you can block users easily enough. Simply go to the offending profile, tap the menu symbol (three dots) and tap ‘Block’. While you’re at it, it might also be a good idea to tap ‘Report’ and make Instagram aware of any improper behaviour.
Sign into the app and on the Home screen in YouTube on the More symbol (three dots), tap ‘Block this video’ or ‘Block this channel’, as appropriate. You can perform the same task following the same steps from the Watch page. There are guidelines on child protection and online community guidelines issued by Google who own YouTube.
To help hide explicit content during internet searches, use Google’s SafeSearch facility. Just go to the Google homepage, tap ‘Settings’, then ‘Search Settings’ and tick the box ‘Turn on SafeSearch’.
Limiting who can contact your child is the way forward on this platform. Tap the cog-like ‘Settings’ menu and then ‘Who Can – Contact Me’. Then just tap ‘My Friends’. This means only added friends can send your child a Snapchat. (You might want to go through their list of friends with them, too.)
Like Instagram, there’s no sure-fire method on Twitter to stop your child encountering inappropriate content. You have to be fed the content and then manually block it. The answer is to deal with issues as soon as they arise. Tap the down arrow at the top of a Tweet and then, depending on the severity of the content in question – choose ‘I don’t like this Tweet’, ‘Mute’, ‘Block’ or ‘Report’.
Again, you will need to go through the timeline and manually make alterations to ensure less inappropriate content is available on Facebook. Tap the horizontal dots on the top-right of the post in question and then tap the most fitting response from the drop-down menu; from simply hiding the post to reporting it as a violation of Facebook’s community standards. With Facebook, it also pays to be proactive in looking through privacy settings.
Shielding your children from upsetting coronavirus content online
A more recent example of the kind of content that might upset young children comes from coverage and material around the coronavirus pandemic. Such material might not be intended to harm, indeed it might be on public information websites or major news sites. Images of victims, perhaps in intensive care units, could concern or upset children, especially if they know a family member has had the virus. Naturally, it is then down to a parent to provide context and keep an eye on what their child is watching. It has been a challenge for all parents to explain what the pandemic means and to find a way to talk about issues like death, or why lockdowns were needed. Staying calm and having open discussions around Covid-19 issues would seem to be the way and, of course, the pandemic itself has led to online viewing being a daily issues for parents anyway.
You can find out more about internet safety and gain that extra peace of mind from Internet Matters.