A Word on Safety
The first thing everyone needs to know is that YouTube is NOT for people under the age of 13.
Some Things Are Better Left Private...
Posting videos of yourself, your friends, or your family can be fun and exciting. You never know who will find it—it might even get featured on the front page, or wind up on the top of the Most Viewed! If your video is personal, consider marking it private so that only your friends and those you share it with can view it.
Protect Your Secret Identity!
If you do post public videos, make sure there isn't anything in them that could help a stranger figure out who you are or where you live. Personal information like your telephone number or home address should NEVER be shared with other users. Watch out for things like license plate numbers on cars or images of the outside of your home which might accidentally appear in the background of a video and help a stranger to track you down.
Remember, YouTube employees will never ask you for your password, email address, or other account information. Don't be fooled if someone contacts you pretending to be from YouTube!
Keep Your Cool, Keep YouTube Safe
Whether it's a flame war, cyberbullying, or people being just plain mean, comments can get pretty rough sometimes. When you post a video you can choose whether you want to let people comment on your videos at all. If someone leaves a comment on your video that is mean or bothers you, you can always delete the comment. Another option is to have comments "kinda" on, which means that you get to approve or remove people's comments before they appear on the site.
YouTube doesn't allow videos with nudity, graphic violence or hate. If you come across a video like this, click the link on the video to flag it as Inappropriate and submit the form on the next page to report it to YouTube.
YouTube has literally MILLIONS of viewers every day and just like in the real world, most of the people are good, but some aren't. So please take care to protect yourself and your fellow users by keeping personal videos private, your identity a secret, your comments clean, and by using the flagging system to report abuse.
— The YouTube Team