I have a few things to say about that when I have more time but thanks very much for the link. I'm directly familiar with a lot of what is mentioned.
That's a good article but a bit too long winded and should have focused on the more offensive/disturbing material than the bot spamming mild cartoons.
Good article. My daughter is definitely one of those kids obsessed with kinder eggs. She could watch that stuff for hours. Hard to understand but it seems so widespread and well, i'm not 3 anymore. Kids have so much access to content via the 'net these days you have to be constantly aware. We try and push her toward the more mainstream stuff like Netflix shows and the Disney movies (and limit screen time) but Youtube has its pull.
I downloaded and installed Youtube Kids to stream to the Chromecast in the play-pit.
That lasted one session. Just going through the hits searching for nursery rhymes came up with some inexplicably twisted results. Haven't used it since. Netflix has a few questionable items in the Kids category, but still night and day better than Google. And Amazon is just disappointing since Prime-items seem to come and go on some licensing whims... but the content that is there is solid.
We had to cut our older daughter off because she was getting crazy if we took the iPad away; it turned out for the best. She has he own now that has a timer. A few years ago she was really into the egg videos; but now at 5 she mostly watches kids stuff on NetFlix.
My younger daughter though - she is two and does come across this stuff. We now watch with her, and if we can't then we don't let her watch.
I've been spending a ton of time blocking and seeding. Let's see if it pays off at all.
"YouTube is to restrict the availability of videos showing children's characters in violent or sexual scenes if they are reported by viewers."
This thread is timely, just downloaded YouTube kids today. The boy wanted to watch a few videos about Kenya and it's wildlife. He typed it in and this popped up first... Very educational...
Suggestion after that was an animated song about an armadillo who meets a gory end... twice in the few seconds it took me to get rid.
I don't think I could leave him to his own devices on there.
He did find the Kenya song crazy hilarious though, which in turn made me chortle, not for ten hours though...
The Kenya song is from Weebl, the same guy who did Badgers, Narwhals ,and Amazing Horse. It's catchy stuff, but not kid-friendly.
I have no idea how we have managed to avoid all if this YouTube kids craziness. My five year old watches YouTube, but it's either EllieV playing with Legos or reruns of Disney Gummy Bears cartoons. None of this crazy stuff comes up, even though we had a couple of months of egg opening videos.
The toy unboxing stuff is driving me crazy. Block, block, block!
Wow that's messed up. I feel much better about my weird stuff I like youtube recommendations and playlists though.
YOUTUBE JUST TOOK DOWN THE CREEPY KIDS’ CHANNEL TOY FREAKS
I echo all the previous comments above that kids video programming should not be left to algorithms. Of all the marvelous talk of "AI" and "machine learning" we've got a long long way to go before it's useful for something like this.
I have less and less faith in Google in particular as time goes on.
Did they take down the other 1000+ channels that the folks behind Toy Freaks created using their bot tech? My observation is that whatever kind of video/channel you block, YT Kids will just serve you an identical or almost identical video from a different channel (likely created by the same group). I've literally blocked hundreds of channels to no real effect.
The only course of action, from what I can tell, is to look at your kids watched history (scroll left from the opening screen) and block the video/channel that is causing YT Kids to recommend the unwanted content. For example, if I'm trying to stop toy unboxing videos from getting recommended, I need to find what video my kid watched that lead to that recommendation. Sometimes it's obvious although not always.
Anyway, of course that doesn't stop your kid getting to that kind of content again but at least it will take a few more steps instead of being right there on the recommendations page.
Of course, the obvious thing that I think they could do algorithmically would be to use your blocked video/channel list in their recommendations engine and not recommend content similar to that.
The only course of action, from what I can tell, is to look at your kids watched history (scroll left from the opening screen) and block the video/channel that is causing YT Kids to recommend the unwanted content. For example, if I'm trying to stop toy unboxing videos from getting recommended, I need to find what video my kid watched that lead to that recommendation. Sometimes it's obvious although not always.
I can confirm that this absolutely does not work, mostly because of:
My observation is that whatever kind of video/channel you block, YT Kids will just serve you an identical or almost identical video from a different channel (likely created by the same group).
I have blocked literally every channel in the history, then cleared the history, and then we're right back to square one. After about a week of doing this once (or twice) a day, I just gave up. The one and only surefire solution I have found was to remove/restrict access to YouTube for your kids completely. It certainly sucks if it is the only way you can get your kids to give yourself some free time to do some chores or take care of anything else around the house, but it's really the only thing to do if you absolutely do not want your children stumbling onto this stuff.
Well, as I said, it adds a few steps to your child getting back to the unwanted content. Depending on your child's viewing habits, that could be anything from 10 minutes to over an hour. I'm currently checking in with the app when I get home so I'll see if this can be a medium term solution.
I'm probably lucky in that none of really abusive stuff has come up. What I don't like is the subpar content coming up when there is clearly high quality stuff out there.
Other minor beefs. The voice recognition doesn't understand my daughter at all. Plus the other tabs, music, education etc. all have Japanese only content. I can't figure out where this setting is coming from.
7 million subscribers, 'violated community guidelines'. I hate YT hypocrisy. They do not care what you post until someone complains.
I watch a Feminist Frequency video, and the algorithm (all hail the algorithm) subsequently recommends me a dozen MRA garbage takes. I don’t know why I though the Kids app would be any better.
A strange app. The only winning move is not to install it.
I think this is the appropriate thread.
Did you know that your child is interested in Hindi nursery rhymes? Neither did I until Youtube Kids!
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