Parents welcomed the app YouTube Kids when it came on the scene in 2015. A way to make sure your children have access to only kid-friendly entertainment? Sounds perfect!
The app has proven immensely popular, with over 11 million viewers on the app weekly, and more than 70 billion views on the app so far.
However, recent complaints about inappropriate videos sneaking through the YouTube Kids algorithm have made parents question whether the app truly is suitable for children.
These videos often showed beloved children’s characters in graphically violent or sexually explicit situations, including an unsettling take on Peppa Pig. Those who uploaded the videos managed to game the algorithm so they could trick kids into watching disturbing videos.
YouTube has encouraged parents to block channels, disable certain search results, and report videos they find inappropriate. Reported videos are reviewed by a YouTube employee.
Malik Ducard, the global head of YouTube’s family and learning content, has said that ‘making the app family friendly is of the utmost importance to us’ and stated that unsuitable content is ‘the extreme needle in the haystack’.
Numbers-wise, ‘less than .005 percent’ of millions of videos were removed for being inappropriate in the last 30 days. However, with more than 400 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, the algorithm has a lot to filter through.
Yesterday, YouTube took more action to making YouTube Kids and YouTube, in general, more family-friendly. YouTube added in their policy that ‘inappropriate use of family entertainment characters’ will now lead to an age restriction on videos. Age-restricted videos require that a person must be 18 or older to view and to prove their age the person must sign in via their Google account.
YouTube Kids also added a new feature last week: YouTube Kids profiles. Currently, YouTube Kids profiles are only in Australia, Canada, the U.S., and 34 other countries. The feature is not available in the UK yet.
With YouTube Kids, children can each have their own custom profile on the app, with passcodes to make sure their siblings can’t use their profile. Of course, parents can override their children’s passcodes.
The app can also be tailored to kids’ ages with the new changes, meaning that younger kids will see less text.
Do you think YouTube is doing enough to keep inappropriate content from reaching kids’ screens? Do you use YouTube Kids in your family?
