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YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

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Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#431
post #354

We used to let our 3 y/o watch youtube. She learned lots of things from there which was amazing. Colors, Numbers, the alphabet; all by the time she was 2. I'm not a teacher by any means so it was awesome to see this happen. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

My 3 year old loves excavator and robot videos. Suddenly all this strange videos were recommended. Search "bad baby" to see what I mean. They also pop up in youtube for kids and they have thousands of views, unbelievable!

I did a search for "mickey mouse" and found a bunch. Two of them, Super Mickey TV and Kids Toon TV, have been up since 2009 and gotten over 350M views combined.

https://www.youtube.com/user/CaluMMaCL1/about

https://www.youtube.com/user/lovepersonified19/about

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#432
post #345

We used to let our 3 y/o watch youtube. She learned lots of things from there which was amazing. Colors, Numbers, the alphabet; all by the time she was 2. I'm not a teacher by any means so it was awesome to see this happen. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

Agreed and YouTube could do a lot better, my child does not need a library of 30 million videos, I would rather have a well curated whitelist of 10000.

This is not about your child, this is about making the most profit through collecting personal data and advertising while keeping the target engaged. you know, google.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#433
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed and YouTube could do a lot better, my child does not need a library of 30 million videos, I would rather have a well curated whitelist of 10000.

Yeah, they could solve this problem in a heartbeat by having a mode where you can only look at your subscribed content.

This would not help their business.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#434

We used to let our 3 y/o watch youtube. She learned lots of things from there which was amazing. Colors, Numbers, the alphabet; all by the time she was 2. I'm not a teacher by any means so it was awesome to see this happen. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

I don't get why they can't just implement a way to just show content that you have subscribed to. That way you can exactly control what you let your kid look at.

They can but they won't. Simply because it goes against their business model.

Besides it is not that hard to download local copies of the videos you want and now you do not even need to be online.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#435
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had good luck with Netflix for Kids.

For really young ages, I don't really see letting my kids watch something I haven't previewed, or at least something that I am watching with them and I am able to stop it at a moment's notice. Even for slightly older kids, a curated platform is always going to be a safer bet than a moderated platform. It seems fairly easy to find good sources of curated content. And of course there's just making sure they don't spend…

Exactly this ! Do not let young children unsupervised when online or watching tv or videos.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. She's only allowed on Netflix now. I've seen Sofia 10,000 times.

I never understood how it was possible for little girls to watch the same movie literally hundreds of times, sometimes twice in one day. Some day science will get around to the real mysteries like this. I think I've tried to erase the memories of torture I survived, hearing Horton Hears a Who played most days for almost a year.

Simply enough: dopamine.

This is an enjoyable experience for them, it is actually designed to be. This is how you sell tie-ins and make profit, the younger you get them the deeper they're caught in.

The side effect is that it is destroying their attention and impairs their self-development and cognition.

Also the human brain is a sucker for a good story, before screens and videos, kids were addicted to bedtime storytelling and could ask being told the same story a lot of times.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#437
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about 3 year olds but parking infants in front of "educational" videos does the opposite: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,0...

incidentally, I have a similar opinion on school.

you have a similar opinion on the specific broken school system you have in mind. Not all school systems are broken by design and aim at shoehorning kids in a mental mould to have them integrate the system society wants them to be a part of.

https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_cre...

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#438
post #8

What I find interesting is when you have parental controls on, and your playing a kids video, the advertisements are not something a kid should be shown.

Actually advertisements are not something kids should be exposed to at all. At least if you have the sake and health of the kid in minf.

If what you have in mind is to target kids while they have not yet developed their mind to the point of dealing with advertising then this is something they should be exposed to.

I tend to be of the first mindset.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#439
post #70
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth can parents willingly expose their children to any kind of advertisement is beyond me. Adblocking is a must. Especially at such young age, you should know and control all manipulative media your kid consumes.

In my jurisdiction, any and all advertisement aimed at children is illegal, full stop. It continuously amazes me that this is not the norm in the rest of the world.

Sweden ?

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#440
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth can parents willingly expose their children to any kind of advertisement is beyond me. Adblocking is a must. Especially at such young age, you should know and control all manipulative media your kid consumes.

Unfortunately, decent adblock on Android requires root, which most can't have, and most of those who can would still need to unlock the bootloader, flash recovery, flash supersu, install fdroid, and install adblock. That leaves us with a very small subset of users that can use adblock. This problem is exasperated by the fact that phones/tablets are particularly well-suited to, and popular with, young children. Childr…

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I have installed a ublock origins on a few dozens of android devices of all kind and it always works like a charm.

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