Today marks the start of Internet Safety Month, and even if that’s not the sort of thing many calendars will mention (this also happens to be International Children’s Day and Samoa’s Independence Day), visitors to YouTube will be made aware of the occasion.  YouTube’s celebrating the month on its homepage.

Yes, rather than show the most popular videos – or even an advertisement – YouTube’s given up a significant amount of above-the-fold space to a brief message about Internet safety and a selection of videos dealing with the topic.  And compared to popular clips or an ad, that’s almost sure to cost the site a lot of viewers and/or money.

YouTube at least earns PR points for the move, though, and in a post on the YouTube Blog, Mandy Albanese went over some other safety-related rules, tools, and features.

To recap: YouTube’s Community Guidelines of course establish what it and isn’t allowed on the site, and users who see inappropriate content can flag it for review.  People who are at work, have children, or are just a bit sensitive can enable Safety Mode, too.

Then, for content makers, YouTube recently introduced the Unlisted Videos feature, and Albanese at last described the Help & Safety Tool as something "that allows you to report privacy violations, block users and report harassment and bullying anonymously."

All of this should definitely go a ways towards making Internet Safety Month a more high-profile occasion next year.