To think they made a mountain out of a molehill

[Sophisticatedsarcasm]

Backstory :
DS 10 has asd and is very interested in making his own videos etc and he posts them on you tube. He has many subscribers, actually has the most subscribers in his school. Some of the boys are Trying to get more subscribers but are failing miserably, my son started to help them but when they started doing football videos he wasn’t interested anymore and backed away. One of the boys wrote a comment on one of his videos which had all the vibes of jealousy. DS was showing some of his other friends this morning how pathetic (his words not mine) that boy was and his friends said he should report it to the the teachers, so que a 15min phone to my DP who didn’t even know about the comment, from the deputy head. She basically said he was too young to have a you tube account and that we should be checking what he does online. I do check every night when he’s gone to bed, which he doesn’t know about so he doesn’t try to hide anything, he always tells us anyway if he has a problem. We had a meeting on Tuesday with his senco who is an assistant head who was aware about his social media and iPad interactions and she never said anything.
I understand my DS brought it to their attention, however he was only talking about the comment. Surely it’s up to his parents wether he has an YouTube account, I don’t feel like chastising me for letting my son express himself in a non threatening way is at all on. I subscribe to his channel so I can see what he posts and am very much on top of all of his online activities and he doesn’t even try to hide. I understand they have a duty of care but in this day and age literally all of year 4,5,6 all have most of the social media outlets.
So AIBU

ToeToToe she was complaining about being chastised for him having a channel at all. The school didn't tell her her son needed guidance, they told her he shouldn't have an account. I do understand how frustrating it must be for the school when children bring trivial, nonschool things up at school. I can understand them being annoyed by it but their response wasn't a good one.

The age limit for YouTube is 13 yabu

saying he’s too young yet kids watch videos made my kids his age and some younger....but that’s okay..

I don't think anyone actually said that.

You have to be really careful with the stuff kids can watch on there - but that's different from actually having a channel on there. That can leave them open to actual abuse and trolling - as you've seen.

I really can't get my head around this, you saw the comment and just brushed it off as a silly boy, whereas your son purposefully showed his friends who all agreed with him that it's not right and to tell the teacher and your having a winge about the school for trying safeguard your child? Sounds like your son didn't agree with you waving the comment away and felt the need to tell someone else. Your not dealing with this well

But that’s the point, saying he’s too young yet kids watch videos made my kids his age and some younger....but that’s okay..

Only one poster has made this claim. No one else is saying it.

literally all of year 4,5,6 all have most of the social media outlets

I highly doubt that. None of mine had ANY social media outlets in yr 6 let alone yr blinking four. Eight year olds!!

What's the problem with Snapchat as long as you only have close friends and family on it at that age? As long as mum checks his contact list.

Because checking only occurs after things happen? If he adds someone dodgy/adds things to his public story, mum won't know until she checks.
And because it's ridiculously easy to put yourself on the snapmap with a few random swipes of the hand.

The ignorance of some people over the internet and social media is baffling. Children have literally died due to online bullying and grooming. It is a really serious safeguarding issue nowadays and one that is becoming more sinister and prevalent. The problem is all schools can do is inform the parents and hope they are savvy enough to ensure their children are using the internet sadly, which obviously is not happening in a lot of cases.

*safely not sadly

Amethystical - because at that age friends fall out a lot. I don’t want my DD potentially getting nasty messages that vanish after they are watched.
Children can also follow and unfollow people when you are not watching.

I personally am with fine with certain social media but Snapchat is not one of them.

Very recently one of my sons was subject to a very nasty comment at school by a child and then again out of school by one of the bully's friends. Luckily for them that this was not done on social media because I would have involved the police and I would have had no sympathy for the child whatsoever.

You are not protecting your child from the dangers of social media and it is quite possible that he will end up in a lot of trouble.

literally all of year 4,5,6 all have most of the social media outlets

No they don't. Only the ones you know do. All my DC's friends are out playing sport and other clubs. They all have iPads and use them for restricted gaming, Minecraft and other non interactive stuff but they are not on social media. My 13 year old has never asked to sign up to Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram or anything else.

'But that’s the point, saying he’s too young yet kids watch videos made my kids his age and some younger....but that’s okay..'

Some 10 year olds hang around the streets some even younger dc hang around the streets too ....

Your child is socially vulnerable and if you let him into a situation where he could be bullied online then you were very lucky it wasn’t worse than one boy leaving a nasty comment.

He’s “socially vulnerable” at school and in any clubs he goes to too. He’s almost certainly had worse than one boy making a nasty comment to him in real life. The answer to him being socially vulnerable isn’t to isolate him. It’s to keep an eye on what happens, talk to him about it, step in and guide or protect him when it’s necessary. Just as you do with other social interaction.

Minecraft and other non interactive stuff - you realise that Minecraft is mainly played online and normally is interactive?

You can switch off the interactive option. We do.

Hence I said “normally”. The point was that to blithely talk about Minecraft as though it isn’t interactive is disengious. You have to remove a lot of what the game is about to do that.

A lot of social media has age restrictions, but it has them because of American legal obligations on service providers around data collection for under 13s. It has nothing to do with concern about policing for younger people and certainly not anything to do with more vulnerable people in any other capacity.

Most DCs in our school have social media from age 8 up either mobiles; WhatsApp or YouTube.

DS doesn't. But he is in the minority.
Contrary to what a PP said, it's easy to delete comments; to block users and to disable comments.

MN is odd sometimes. There are lots of threads on here about under-age DCs playing Fortnite etc. Yet this thread is full of posters whose children have no social media. I've never seen so many anti-social media posters on the same thread before.