Anybody remember when SonicWALL had a Youtube integration to restrict specific videos for schools?
‘YouTube for Schools’
http://help.sonicwall.com/help/sw/eng/9500/26/2/3/content/yo...
YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
71–80 of 261 posts
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#72Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…
I find that video deeply unsettling.
I feel like those videos could be generated without human intervention, by hooking a neural net up to some video software and pre-made assets and optimizing for views. And, while that's not literally how they're made, the difference feels increasingly academic.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#73People are ignoring by far the worst issue with YouTube Kids - as a parent you have no power to curate anything.
It would be one thing if you as a parent could say "anything from these channels is okay", but your only option is to block videos one at a time. As it is, I have no way to prevent my toddler from spending 4 hours watching random Serbian videos of toys being dipped paint.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#74Yeah but they also think heavy metal is Satanic speech. We're not talking about experts here. They have zero information content. This is the usual old generation hand wringing. Whether YT Kids is crap or not, these guys aren't who I'd go to to find out.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't believe it's YouTube's job to make it a completely safe space for kids I would say it is if the product is literally YouTube Kids... [1] [1] https://www.youtubekids.com
From their website [0] > YouTube Kids was created to give kids a more contained environment that makes it simpler and more fun for them to explore on their own, and easier for parents and caregivers to guide their journey as they discover new and exciting interests along the way. And from TFA, > The letter claimed that one research team, which it did not name, found only about 4% of videos had a high educational valu…
So much of that low quality dreck is really really far from "new and exciting interests" or safe for kids to "explore on their own".
Blaming parents is pretty far off base here. The whole point of the app is to let kids use it on their own, but it's clearly not safe to do so, because they'll rapidly trigger the recommendation algorithm into some dopamine-producing engagement-optimized garbage.
You can direct your kids to only watch stuff you approve of, but as soon as the recommendations start coming up, you're put in the position of saying "no", which with toddlers often leads to disproportionate screaming fits. I'd rather save dealing with that for the times when it's actually important to say "no" rather than trying to screen out some crappy low quality toy videos.
I've deleted the YouTube app and instead given my toddler free reign with the PBS Kids app. Much higher quality content that I'm happy to support with donations to PBS and WGBH.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#76Curated and at least semi-professionally produced content, like PBS kids, is infinitely better in terms of providing consistently good content. I think YouTube is at its heart fundamentally incompatible with providing only high quality enriching content. Everyone being able to make content means there are gems that would never otherwise get made, and also vast wastelands of garbage to sort through, or get dumped into…
PBS Kids is made by people optimizing for quality content. YT Kids is made by people optimizing for marketing dollars.
You can thank OPB for that. They have been long time partners with PBS and they curate and provide the pbs kids app and YouTube stream.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#77Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…
I'd recommend blocking the entire channel each time you see a video like this, and also go through the top hundred recommended videos or so and block all the channels with content you don't like. I've only blocked a few dozen channels, and we barely see any of this stuff now. The UI might be a bit confusing, because you can only block a channel if you're currently viewing a video from it.
I do wish I could just whitelist channels, or get automatic recommendations for channels to block.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#78Bigger problem is the parents who let their children watch youtube or whatever way too much.
Sure, blame the parents, and not the society that leaves us all exhausted from working too much and the dopamine-optimized algorithmic engagement furnace that is YouTube. Yeah just keep blaming parents. That'll make everything better.
Being a parent is about sacrifice, lots and lots of it. That includes working yourself beyond exhaustion to provide for, feed, play with, give attention to, and talk with your kids. It isn't easy, but it's the moral responsibility of everyone who becomes a parent.
I realize a huge percentage of parents fail at this (some more than others), and the amount of work that must be done to make a living and the ease with which things like Youtube make handing off parenting to them doesn't help matters. But the moral responsibility still ultimately resides with the parents themselves.
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#79Bigger problem is the parents who let their children watch youtube or whatever way too much.
Sure, blame the parents, and not the society that leaves us all exhausted from working too much and the dopamine-optimized algorithmic engagement furnace that is YouTube. Yeah just keep blaming parents. That'll make everything better.
The problem with society is that we've gotten to a point where everything is always somebody else's fault. No one is ever responsible for anything, it must be the fault of social conditioning, corporations, religions, upbringing, or literally anything else you want to blame. Sure those things play a part, but ultimately people are responsible for what they do. If someone is letting their 3 year old spend hours in front of YouTube every day then that's really their fault, not Google's
Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers
#80YouTube Kids is so bad, https://youtu.be/oEYUjI3mkB0
... so nightmarish platform
still same problem as 3 years ago ( https://www.engadget.com/2018-03-23-youtube-still-plagued-di... )