We all think it's great to film video on our mobile phones or camcorders but put safety at the top of the list of screen credits!

Don't get yourself into a situation which might embarass you and don't take pictures of other people which might embarass them and get you into trouble.

Like other social networking websites YouTube is not for people under the age of 13.

 

Warning!

If you EVER come across anything on the internet, whether it's on a social networking website or anywhere else, where people are making suggestions to you that make you feel uncomfortable or upset, please tell your parents or another adult.

CEOP (The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) investigates cases of sex abuse and grooming on the internet. Grooming is where people make friends with you and try to involve you in inappropriate activities. In the UK this behaviour is a criminal offence. You, your parents, or anyone else who is concerned, can report incidents by clicking the red button on the top right hand corner of the CEOP website.

Although the police can get information from your computer's hard drive, it's helpful if you don't delete anything you think is dodgy until the police have decided whether they need it as evidence.

Protect your identity

Don't upload any video that could identify you, which shows your home address, school, car registration number or phone number. Videos can give away a lot of clues without you even realising it!

Nobody from YouTube will ever contact you for account information or for your email address so don't give out bank or any other details.

Privacy

If you're using a shared computer at school, in an internet cafe or library then you'll stay logged on even when you close the browser. This is because YouTube uses persistent cookies. So don't forget to log off when you've finished the session.

You can remove your age from your profile page by going to "My Account", "Channel Settings" and clicking on "Personal Info". Choose "Do not display your age on your public profile" and then click  "Update Channel".

To change your personal info, click the "Channel Info" link. It's best not to fill in any info at all which identifies you because even though you may get very friendly with other YouTubers, if you don't know them in real life you only have their word that they are who they say they are!

"My Channel" is also where you'll find the "Location Info" link but again, DON'T give away any info that would let people identify you or let them steal your ID.

Problems

Comments can make you very angry if they are abusive but don't get involved in a flame war. Often nasty remarks are made to wind you up and even if they're not, sometimes you can take a remark the wrong way, just because of the way it's written.

You don't have to let people comment on your videos. To change the settings for that, go to "My Videos" and click on the "Edit Video" button under the video you want to edit.

Look under "Sharing" where you'll find the button to allow comments. You can choose to either moderate comments by reading them privately before uploading them, or you can let people say what they like. You can also turn comments off altogether. Click on "Update Video Info" to save the changes.

If you want to remove an offensive comment from one of your videos, watch the video and then scroll to "Comments & Responses", find the comment and click on the "Remove" link. You can't reinstate comments if they were removed in error.

Abuse

Flag a video you think is inappropriate and YouTube will take a look at it to see whether it breaks their terms of use.  If it does then they will remove it.

YouTube rules say you can't upload videos with hate content, nudity or graphic violence and if you find one on someone else's space, click on the video to flag it as inappropriate. Submit the form on the next page and report it to YouTube.

You should tell YouTube about videos which show anyone being hurt, attacked or humiliated because they break the rules. YouTube says it has zero tolerance of harassment, stalking, threats or revealing another member's personal information.

Hate speech which targets racial groups, religion, disability, gender, age and sexual orientation is not allowed either.

YouTube has community guidelines and if people break those then YouTube say they will remove the offending video and put a warning strike against the culprit's account. The strikes stay on the account for six months.

Do it a second time within six months and your privilege to upload to YouTube is temporarily disabled. Do it a third time in six months and your account is terminated.

Threats and harassment are likely to mean the account is terminated immediately without warning.

How to report abuse

To report abuse use the YouTube online alert .

This sends you to a page where you are asked to choose whether the problem is harassment, hate speech or privacy and whether you or your child are the target or whether you are complaining on behalf of someone else, like a friend or workmate.

Clicking through to the next section gives you the option to tell YouTube whether someone has released your personal info, stolen your video, is making rude comments, created a video to harass you, is threatening you or has stolen your identity.

You then enter the person's username and on the next page choose how the harassment is happening, with videos, video comments or responses or with channel comments. When you've found the video or comments you have the option to block the user.
Deleting people from your address book

If you fall out with a friend and they cause trouble you can delete them from your address book by going to your account page and clicking the "All Contacts" link in the "Friends and Contacts" section.

Choose which person you want to unfriend and the click on "Remove Contacts". From then on the person won't be on your "Share Video" list.

Closing your account If you close your account that will permanently remove your profile from You Tube.

Click on "My Account" in the top right hand corner and under "Account Settings" click on "Delete Account". Give the reason you're quitting the site and your password and then click "Delete My Account". Log out by clicking the link in the top right hand corner.

Your videos will be removed from the site immediately and the thumbnails will disappear as soon as YouTube is updated.

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