Child Safety for YouTube
Built by parents for parents
Why Plumu?
As a parent, do you have control over which videos your child watches on YouTube? Is your child addicted to Shorts?
Is your child exposed to age-inappropriate or bizarre videos that a social media algorithm suggests to them and there's nothing you can do about it?
Do you struggle with confusing time limit settings that often don't even work?
Are there useful or educational videos you think your child should watch but you don't know how to do it?
What our users say about Plumu
Curated and time boxed to protect kids
In addition to the great kids features already mentioned in other reviews: This app makes money with subscriptions. Which means it will not be in business of selling the kids video activity information to the highest bidder.
husaindalal
Peace of mind for parents!
Really happy with Plumu! It's given me much better control over what my 5 and 8-year-old watch on YouTube. Now I can relax knowing they're not seeing anything they shouldn't, and the time management feature is a godsend. Definitely recommend it for parents!
Vovkaermakov
Must have app for parents!
I love the granular control for my kids’ videos! Especially, adding channels but having the ability to block specific videos in them. It is so refreshing not having algorithm-suggested videos, only the videos I approve. It helps me have a peace of mind about what my kids watch.
ben3353
Exactly what I needed
With this app I can now ensure my child is not exposed to inappropriate videos. I like that my child now has a separate account and their view history is separate from mine.
Itomatik
What are Plumu's features?
Add / Remove channels
Search for any YouTube channel or video! Add or remove any YouTube channel. Your child will only be able to watch videos from the channels you added. No suggested videos or Shorts from channels you didn’t add!
Add / Block individual videos
Add any video without adding its channel or block a video from a channel you already added. Basically, you get a very granular control over channels and videos.
Send a video
If there are videos you think your child should absolutely see, send it to them! These videos will autoplay before child’s own videos. These are typically educational, or safety related videos that parents want their children to see.
Remotely control child’s app from your own device
Plumu works in two modes: parent and child. Install Plumu on your own and child’s devices - iOS or Android. You can now control the child’s app from your own: curate the content, update the time limit, send videos to your child - all from your device! To make sure child’s app reflects remotely made changes, shake it (not the child - their device!).
Create separate profiles for each child
Create separate profiles for your children. This way you can control which videos each of them should be able to see, based on their age and preferences. This will also ensure the watch history is separate for each child.
Set a time limit inside the app
OS level time limits can be confusing, and they don’t always work. Instead you can use Plumu’s built-in daily time limit.
Receive weekly watch history summary
Plumu sends weekly summary about videos seen by a child, grouped by channel. You can see what your child watched at a glance without having to go through a watch history of every single video (which you still can do if you want to).
Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I use Plumu instead of YouTube Kids?
Fair question! There are multiple issues we found with YouTube Kids that Plumu addresses:
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Many channels are not available on YouTube Kids, even though parents may consider them to be totally safe for their kids to watch.
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Some channels or videos that are available on YouTube Kids may not be considered safe by parents. For example, a Lego video depicting a plane crash with characters in panic and saying all kinds of strange things. Videos like this may seem harmless at first glance, but they can be traumatizing to a child.
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As children grow older, they don’t want to use YouTube Kids because it’s meant for smaller kids.
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YouTube / YouTube Kids doesn’t guarantee that a child safe video doesn’t show inappropriate ads.
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User experience of figuring out how to configure YouTube Kids to minimize harm to children is non-trivial. You can access more sophisticated controls in YouTube Kids, but you’ll need to spend a lot of time researching that.
Doesn't YouTube already have parental control?
YouTube does have something called “supervised experience”, but it does not guarantee absence of unwanted content, e.g. YouTube itself say, “our systems are not perfect and will make mistakes” about it.
Why should I use Plumu as opposed to some other solution?
Plumu is unique in that it has features that other solutions don’t have, and it’s look-and-feel is superior because we built Plumu with mobile-first technologies. For instance, we have ability to send a video to a child; weekly watch history summary; easy way to remotely control the child’s app and others. We don’t show ads, and are not incentivized by metrics like video views, or engagement, like a social media app. We will be happy if your child uses Plumu minimally!
