YouTube- Friend or Foe?
Kids naturally think any application that serves hours of entertainment must be a very good friend. And who can blame them! However, for those of us responsible for little ones -YouTube makes us feel, as one mom explained, “like my child is one click away from seeing *$%@.” And that’s something no Cynja should ever experience.
It’s not just inappropriate content parents should worry about. The YouTube video platform is a target for malvertising – malicious advertising which redirects YouTube users, like your child, to harmful websites. In fact, the majority of these infections are occurring on devices in the United States.
So how do make YouTube a friend and reduce the chances of our kids experiencing the dark side of this application? Well, we have to explain an important life lesson to our kids—sadly, some friends can turn into our enemy. YouTube is just such an example.
⇒ YouTube is what we call a frenemy. Sometimes it’s our friend. But when we tap on the wrong image it might become our worst cyber enemy. That’s because bad guys enjoy lurking behind YouTube advertisements or small images promoting other videos you’ll want to watch.
⇒ Enemies are very tricky. How do we keep YouTube as our friend? We only tap on the video Mom or Dad has helped you select. You can tap start, pause, and stop on the video you’re watching but must not, under any circumstance, tap other images.
⇒ Why? That’s where the bad guys hide. If you tap on those images, YouTube could immediately become our enemy by infecting this device with malware so bad that you might not get to watch another video on it ever again.
Like in real life—We make smart choices about the friends we hang out with. We also make smart choices in cyberspace about the applications we spend time with, like YouTube.
Staying cyber safe, keeps cyber fun!