How to set up YouTube restrictions via Securly?

A YouTube restricted mode is a great way to limit students’ access to inappropriate content on YouTube. Setting up the YouTube restricted mode will give you greater flexibility in the administration of videos and channels. You can allow specific videos for specific groups of students to suit their educational requirements.   

You can check your current YouTube restrictions by clicking here before proceeding with the setup. 

1. Log in Securly Filter and navigate to the policy you want to edit YouTube settings for. 
2. Click on the YouTube tab and select the Settings tab there. 
3. To set the restriction level for that policy select the option from the 'Available restriction modes' field dropdown.
4. You can toggle the on/off switch for each of the fields to determine other restrictions for that policy.
5. You can also allow or block specific websites, channels, and categories.

It is important to remember that the Securly YouTube settings override the G Suite YouTube settings only if users are NOT logged into YouTube. When users are logged in, the Google Admin Console settings override the Securly YouTube settings. This means that Google Workspace settings would also override videos added to any Allow lists. 

Note that the Allow/ Block list settings for Channels and Videos are currently unavailable for DNS & SmartPAC users. They will be provided in upcoming releases. 

Guest Network Policy users

1. Log in to Securly Filter.
2. Navigate to the Guest Network Policy.  
3. Toggle the switch to 'Lock YouTube restricted mode' for network enforcement of YouTube Restricted mode.

Note that these settings are superseded by the YouTube app or user settings for the user when the user is logged into a school account.

By default, Google authentication does not affect YouTube authentication. This means that just because you are logged into Google does not necessarily mean you're logged into YouTube. If you would like to tie authentication for Google and YouTube together, please consider enabling the settings in G Suite.

For more about setting up YouTube restricted mode in YouTube and G Suite, check out the technical paper here.