Block auto-play, comments or adverts on YouTube

This article applies to organisations with a 'Hybrid' setup (both On-Premise Appliance and Cloud), as well as On-Premise only and Cloud only setups.

 

You can use a Content Modification policy to turn off auto-play and hide comments and advertisements on YouTube videos.

A YouTube Content Modification works best if your organisation only lets users access specific YouTube videos. If your organisation lets users access YouTube, Restricted Mode may be a better solution. Restricted Mode lets you block everything a YouTube Content Modification policy does, as well as blocking mature content and live video.

Before you begin

  1. (On-Premise Appliance) Ensure you have a HTTPS Inspection policy that Decrypts and Inspects the YouTube category.
  2. Remove any policies that could override your Content Modification, such as:
  3. Block non-video adverts such as popups and featured links using a Web Filter Policy to Block the Adverts category.

Create a YouTube Content Modification policy

  1. Create a content modification policy.
  2. (On-Premise Appliance) select the YouTube category.
  3. Select one of these Content Modifications:

    • Important

      The Remove Adverts Content Modification is in the list of available Content Modification for On-Premise Appliance, but using it in On-Premise Appliance has no effect. To block advertisements, use Cloud Filter to apply your Content Modification policies.

      YouTube - Remove Adverts: Users won’t see adverts at the start, during or after the video. You can’t block Adverts using Domain or URL blocklists because they are served from the same location as the video.
    • YouTube - Remove Sidebar and Disable Auto Play: Stop the next related video from automatically playing at the end of the user’s current video.
    • YouTube - Comment Removal: Remove the comments section underneath videos.