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YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

bbc.com

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Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#91

Post by ericlewis »

drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

our kids also have found things like this which lead to YouTube bans in the house - now, they 1.5 and 4yo both seek content that is far more engaging than the above video.

One helpful thing was raising the age for their YouTube kids.. I don't want them just navigating YouTube alone.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#92

Post by [deleted] »

spicybright wrote: post #53
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

Kids should only be able to view content vetted by a human. Full stop. Too bad it's never going to happen.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#93

Post by drivebycomment »

chapium wrote: post #7
[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

The problem is, as soon as good content ends you are presented with videos chosen by algorithm. In absolutely no time kids will optimize for this via the suggestion bar. The other content is from the bizarre dystopia of content farmed videos and weird stuff like opening a toybox full of the same kind of toy. Its incredibly frustrating to filter, channels are whackamole. Also, youtube bypasses dns blocking, making it…

> Also, youtube bypasses dns blocking

Care to elaborate more on what you mean by this ?

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#94

Post by dylan604 »

spicybright wrote: post #53
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

Kids should only be able to view content vetted by a human. Full stop. Too bad it's never going to happen.

Historically, that human was called a parent. Parents today have no chance at the on-slaught of content and the delivery mechanisms for it. When I was a kid, there were 3 networks with a handful of UHF channels. Cartoons only ran on Saturday morning, most channels went off the air at midnight, and the TV censors were much more strict with would could be on the air. My parents had it easy. When I became a parent, the internet was still small, and YT wouldn't be a thing for another 10 years. I feel for my kid becoming a parent though, or others dealing with it now.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#95

Post by j4yav »

challengly wrote: post #61
j4yav wrote: post #6

Curated 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 was great the last time I saw it. Have they managed to stay neutral and not become politicized like so much of the media in the US?

It is nearly impossible to answer this question because everyone means something totally different by apolitical and neutral these days, but as far as I can see it is simple, positive children’s programs.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#96

Post by stefan_ »

theshrike79 wrote: post #45
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

Content farming at its best. Cheap assets and autogenerated computer voice, someone is churning a dozen of these every day with different subjects. Then they're posted to dozens of YT channels in different languages with highly algorithm-optimised names and descriptions. Boom, money.

Who is paying money to target kids that young?

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#97

Post by basch »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

All "customized for you"/"things youll like" algorithms are more about trapping you in a frozen past than expanding your horizons. Everyone together trains the algo what "more of the same looks like" and thats what it regurgitates. Every time I read a marketing copy about AI, that's what I think of first, is that someone literally designed a new mouse trap.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7...

"But taken together the cumulative effect is that of a giant refrigerator that freezes us, and those who govern us, into a state of immobility, perpetually repeating the past and terrified of change and the future."

That article makes the same argument about index funds and hedge funds, the Blackrocks and Vanguards of the world. Minimizing risk means trapping the world in a way that it never has a chance to gamble on changing.

"It has within its memory a vast history of the past 50 years - not just financial - but all kinds of events. What it does is constantly take things that happen in the present day and compares them to events in the past. Out of the millions and millions of correlations - Aladdin then spots possible disasters - possible futures - and moves the investments to avoid that future happening.

I can't over-emphasise how powerful Blackrock's system is in shaping the world - it's more powerful in some respects than traditional politics.

And it raises really important questions. Because its aim is to not change the world - but to keep it stable. Preventing any development thats too risky. And when you are moving $11 trillion around to do that -it is a really important new force."

Personalized tailored experiences prevent the future by making us relive the past.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#98

Post by judge2020 »

IAmWorried wrote: post #50
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

Am I the only one who doesn't see what's so creepy about this? It's a bunch of colors, and cars being dipped into the colors, with dumb music and sfx. Is it really so harmful? Honestly curious as I don't have kids of my own, so not sure.

Well, we know that childhood is extremely important to the development of humans, but we don't know what kids turn out to be if all they watch for years is just a bunch of colors that trigger dopamine and serotonin release constantly. Almost all adults in the U.S. today grew up with some form of media as T.V.s have always been pretty cheap one-time purchases (until recently with cable TV), so if you replace TV content (which at least always had a plotline or other educational content) with YT Kids they might turn out to be worse at problem-solving or other daily tasks that you need to perform for most jobs. It's definitely a subject that should be studied.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#99

Post by dylan604 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #57
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can 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…

That channel, OKKYDOKY, has 1.2 MILLION views. Who makes that stuff? WHY? It even purports to be from the USA. It's just some weird anonymous garbage. How do the people that make that stuff sleep at night? It's like they're trying to exploit glitches in the brains of toddlers.

They probably sleep pretty well with the nice new comfy bed and pillows they are able to afford off of the channel.
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