Filtering YouTube through Mobicip browser

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YouTube

Forums:

Filtering policy

I have had no luck filtering youtube no matter what the filter settings are - mature, moderate, strict. Mobicip is the only browser on this device and the youtube app is blocked. I can access anything when youtube's restricted mode is off. When restricted mode is on, the search results are slightly better but not great. If youtube searches are done through mobicip, shouldn't the mobicip filters work?? What do I need to do?

Mobicip Support Jul 9, 2017

Re: Filtering YouTube through Mobicip browser

Yes, you are correct. When youtube.com is accessed through Mobicip app, filtering should work. There can be several reasons why this is not working for you. We need to look into your account settings to isolate the exact cause of the issue. So, please send an email to our Email Support via your Mobicip - registered email id and we will investigate further asap.

Jen Sep 23, 2017

Please provide solution

I browse this forum for solutions to my mobicip issues before contacting support. I often find posts which discuss the same problem I am experiencing, but no follow up by mobicip support is posted.

It would be helpful to me and others if the solution to user questions was provided, e.g. "the user had setting A but should have had setting B"

Mobicip Support Sep 25, 2017

Re: Please provide solution

Hello Jen

We apologize for any inconvenience caused. Please let us know your exact issue/concern and we will guide you further accordingly.

jeffireland Sep 23, 2017

I seem to have the opposite

I seem to have the opposite problem. I find that the YouTube filtering is too strict, even with Mature setting. My son often complains that he can't access appropriate videos. There needs to be a way to request access, afterwhich I would receive an instant notification for approval. The notification should come from the Monitor app, and not just email.

Mobicip Support Sep 25, 2017

Re: I seem to have the opposite

Hello jeffireland

We understand your concern. Please note that Mobicip filters YouTube by reviewing the title, description, comments and other meta information associated with each video. In most cases, the publisher would include suggestive words and phrases with the video and it would be blocked by Mobicip. Like any filtering product, Mobicip filters the content on a best effort basis and goes beyond most other products in terms of the quality of filtering. Mobicip is the only filtering product that offers YouTube filtering on a video-by-video basis.

As you may already know, filtering video websites like Youtube is very challenging due to the very less or almost no descriptive content on the video pages themselves. Our intent here at Mobicip is to be on the over-protective end and so, you may find that even some videos that may be considered safe were blocked.

Please let us know the specific videos that were incorrectly blocked by Mobicip and your filtering level and we will investigate further asap.

Diane Oct 7, 2017

I cannot disable YouTube restricted mode

I had my son's IPad set up in the "mature" filtering category and whitelisted several channels. However, videos in the whitelisted channels are still being blocked and a message is displayed that the video cannot be played in YouTube's restricted mode. Several times I have gone into the YouTube settings and set restricted mode to "no", but it immediately changes back to "yes" each time. The only way my son can watch his channels at this time is if I change his filter to "monitor". This is not acceptable because he now has access to the entire internet.

Mobicip Support Oct 12, 2017

Re: I cannot disable YouTube restricted mode

We understand your concern. We received several requests from many users that some videos that contain inappropriate content were allowed by Mobicip. We checked and identified that they cannot be blocked since the meta info associated with the videos were fine. As you may already know, Mobicip filters YouTube by reviewing the title, description, comments and other meta information associated with each video. In most cases, the publisher would include suggestive words and phrases with the video and it would be blocked by Mobicip. There are instances where the text associated with the video itself is ok but the content is not acceptable. This is where Mobicip's filter does not work effectively. Mobicip is the only filtering product that offers YouTube filtering on a video-by-video basis. However, catching inappropriate videos with no descriptive content is extremely difficult and almost impossible at this time. Like any filtering product, Mobicip filters the content on a best effort basis and goes beyond most other products in terms of the quality of filtering. However, technology only goes so far.

Then Youtube itself introduced this feature where videos with suggestive content are blocked when restriction is set to strict but kids were able to figure out this option. So, our dev team made this change and Youtube restriction setting will always be force enabled in Mobicip. In other words, Youtube restrictions mode cannot be disabled in Mobicip.

Since the URLs of youtube channel and other youtube videos have the same request format, we will not be able to identify the youtube channel requests separately. So it is not possible to allow specific youtube channel videos in the current filter server setup. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

However, specific Youtube videos can be allowed/blocked for your child user by adding them to your white-list or blocklist. For instance, if you wish to allow the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waGECHA4IV0, just add 'waGECHA4IV0' to the white-list.

Guest Dec 21, 2017

I am a new customer and

I am a new customer and having nothing but issues with youtube as well as others have stated. ANY filter profile i set blocks youtube (unless its Monitor). In the reporting i see that just www.youtube.com is being flagged as mature and adult for some reason so i see why it would block it but why are you flagging it as that when its the main landing page? i'm on my 7 day trial but cant see actually paying for this if this is how it works

Mobicip Support Dec 25, 2017

Re: I am a new customer and

Unfortunately, we are not able to reproduce the issue at our end and youtube.com is allowed for us. We suspect that some content in Youtube homepage at the time of your access must have caused the block.

Please note that our dynamic filter works on algorithms that gives weightage to each questionable word and when the number of those inappropriate words in a specific webpage exceed the limit, the filter will block the page. Once the content of the page changes, it will be allowed by Mobicip. It is not possible for us to go and change the algorithm as it is based on genuine logic.

Try accessing Youtube.com now and check if it is allowed. If the issue still persists, let us know and we will investigate further asap.