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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

#121

Post by corysama »

the_only_law wrote: post #105
crispyambulance wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ve wondered too. I remember looking into the various conspiracies / scandals from a few years back (Elsagate and similar things) and some of it was just extremely bizarre (and likely frightening to some kids) and just had such a mass of content. There are all sorts of conspiracies from some psyop stuff to AI/ML generated content. I have not ideas what to even begin to think. The easiest answer I suppose is just som…

This stuff doesn't require corporate conspiracies. Imagine being a tech-literate person in some very poor country. You discover that if you churn out Flash videos of pregnant Spiderman pulling thorns out of a kitten's paws while spiders crawl down the walls and Elsa is vomiting in the background, you can make a pretty good living for your area without leaving your apartment. You might object to the idea. But, it only takes a few people who say "Fuck it. I need money." to churn out huge quantities of this stuff.

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

#122

Post by ensignavenger »

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.

There are those who would say that that human should be a parental unit.

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

#123

Post by ASalazarMX »

jariel wrote: post #65
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…

It's uncanny how bad the major players are at this. You can click here [1] to see your supposed 'interests'. It's uncannily bad. 'Combat Sports' , 'Boating', 'Construction and Power Tools' and 'Cricket' (!) apparently among interests they think I haven though they are subjects which don't cross my mind. I don't think I've even thought about 'Cricket' other than for them to tell me it's 'an interest'. [1] https://adss…

I recently looked up car tires because mine were old and leaking air. It was a single day, but now it says I'm interested in "cars" and "car tires". No wonder why Seat started insistingly showing ads on my phone.

It also deduced correctly that I'm married with no kids, while my work account is married with teenage kids, probably from watching videos linked here in HN.

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

#124

Post by allworknoplay »

trentnix wrote: post #116
allworknoplay wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me get this straight -- a commercial ad-driven marketplace supplies a very substantial amount of content consumed by children and markets it as educational (and/or allows such marketing), parents are not educational experts, and you think it's problematic that the government might see a need to step in, starting with some basic fact-finding? Nobody is shutting the service down, dude. Maybe we find that nothing is…

This is a major new phenomenon facing parents No. It's not. That's the whole point.

* 6 years old

* hundreds of millions of videos

* many make fairly strong pedagogical claims

* mixed in advertising and product placement

The third one there is the most important here. This isn't comic books, because comic books largely didn't claim to be educational. Seems like a new phenomenon to me. We have truth in advertising laws for good reasons -- companies making obviously false claims about their products' educational value is one of them.

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

#125

Post by jkingsman »

dieortin wrote: post #32
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…

I find that video deeply unsettling.

Same. I particularly found the use of a bong-rip sound effect when the car was in the paint very odd.

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

#126

Post by kevinob11 »

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?

We love PBS kids for my 2,4,6 year olds. I don't feel I've seen any content I'd consider politicized on there.

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

#127

Post by puppable »

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…

Personally, I would say I learned very much when I first watched these videos on YouTube. Not about colors, though.

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

#128

Post by segmondy »

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…

You don't think he remembers the numbers and colors? He might, he's just not saying it. When my kid first recited their 1-10 or ABC. They didn't recite a few. One day out of the blue they went from beginning to end. You might think they are not learning but they are soaking up and just might take some time before they start expressing their knowledge. That said, I would be annoyed to have that play on repeatedly.

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

#129

Post by redisman »

stefan_ wrote: post #96
theshrike79 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Kids have parents who are ready to pay to make them "happy"

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

#130

Post by redisman »

kache_ wrote: post #12
lordnacho wrote: post #9

It's basically correct, there's very little of value on YT kids. It's junk food ADHD content, continuously. Just crappy content like ripoff songs and kids playing with toys, a giant toy advert. My little one used to go nuts when I turned it off. I've had to get rid of it in my house. Standard YT has some interesting channels that you can learn a lot from, but it's worth it for me to PiHole anything youtube anyway. No…

Letting your kid browse algorithmically generated content is not wise :P If I'm vulnerable to stupid clickbait, can't imagine how badly children can be manipulated.

It's interesting how fast they find their favorite clips when I give them a phone in Incognito Mode Youtube for 15 minutes. I seed it with a normal kids clip like a Peppa Pig or something but somehow she used to find this weird car slowly crushing colorful objects channel every time.
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