Committed to a Safer Google Play for Families

I mean, yes, they say that, but there's plenty of videos(on YouTube, lol) showing how to get to child-inappropriate videos on YouTube Kids(Jake Paul videos for instance, they don't show if you search for Jake Paul but there are other terms you can search for and they will show up).

And physically[0], Jake Paul is not a child, further debunking the post I was replying to initially.

[0]: I'm sure there's a ton of controversy because this is the internet and that's what you people do for a living, so I'm sure I'll get some posts claiming he's as mature as a 5 year old or whatever. But Google says born in 1997, which I'm sorry to tell you means he's not a child.

Not related to the article as much as related to google decisions and android in relation to 'families' aka kids and parents..

the parental controls for time that phone went off and was available for better then nothing.. but at 14th birthday all parental control and oversight is removed.

I've searched a bit, and found that maybe Disney Circle is the thing closest to what is needed in situations that I have experienced and seen others try to contend with. 'popcorn time' comes to mind as an app that was widely mentioned when searching for the right controls - from what I remember some things with that fell short. I remember some discussions about an openDNS or similar 'open-souce' dns poisoning service that was similar and competing with disney circle - but when I went to try it out I felt that is was not going to work well and I may not get it to function at all from the docs I saw.

Anyhow, I really want an open source / free alternative the gives parents some controls and clearly explains to teens what is being controlled... I think all parents need the ability to turn off certain apps, or turn off all apps aside from a whitelist of apps that could be available when the others are turned off.

Phones are tricky today in that we want to limit the access to the games at times, but may want to keep access to a phone app like grooveip or google voice.

whether it's bed time or dinner time, I think many of us want to limit some apps but allow other functions, like actually being a phone to still work / be accessible.

I know some parents want to monitor all discussions, that may be a fine choice - but whatever other monitoring may be available, I'd like the kids to have notices about the monitoring.. from parents, from apps, from govments..

While I'm pouring out mu wishlist here, I want an app that monitors for 'bad words lists )editable and subscribable ) - so that a notice can be sent to parents if words like suicide or kill are detected via text or audio.. but not send entire conversations to parents to pry into every detail, and likely miss important things by getting too much data.

In short, I think google's decision to remove all parental oversight at 13 is not good, and affordable options for better monitoring are not available at the moment - and we should do more and better.

While I'm wishlisting, why the hale don't we have auto detection for curse words in youtube videos (and some other words) and the ability to censor them with beeps or silence - some of the gaming youtubers may be entertaining enough to watch but some of the language that is used so much that it injects itself into the daily vocab of kids like an overplayed rap song is too much. Youtube has the power and code already there for transcribing, it could do this kind of thing easy right?

I have one step-kid that will not use youtube on phone at all do the kids only version at 12 1/2 years old.. and another over 13 that watches so much I worry and wonder.

My daughter was a virtual school student last year. Every teacher expected to be able to text and call my daughter throughout the school the day. Technically she didn't have to have her own phone, but in practical terms it was a requirement for (middle) school. Non-traditional schooling seems to be on the rise, so I wonder if this kind of requirement will become more common.

> competing to see who's last

That's a very interesting observation but to really get it to work requires very close cooperation between parents. That takes a lot of time and goodwill which is not easy to create or maintain except in very special circumstances or in rather closed groups.

Our fatal mistake was to get a phone for our son when he started to walk home from school in case there was any change in the usual schedule. Once the genie is out of the bottle any protocol or agreements are negated pretty much instantly. There are so many pressures to encourage phone use (messaging, etc.) it's impossible to restore any level of control without (potentially severe) social consequences for the kids.