Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 261 posts

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

#151

Post by lillesvin »

My daughter (9) got a phone recently and we're kinda managing it through Google's Family Link and it absolutely sucks in pretty much all regards. We're only interested in absolutely minimal control just to make sure she doesn't install something stupid/dangerous, other than that we trust her to use YouTube and the likes responsibly, but that's not The Google Way.

YouTube Kids was the first thing that bothered me. Google wouldn't let me allow her to install regular YouTube, so she was stuck with that horrible, insufferable crap that makes Teletubbies seem like Kieslowski. It's still beyond me why she should be barred from listening to stuff like Kraftwerk's The Robots, Bananarama's Na Na Hey Hey or Hit 'Em High from Space Jam, all of which she's much more into than whatever YouTube Kids thinks 9-year-olds are all about. Fortunately I stumbled upon a toggle in the Family Link settings that would let me let her install and use regular YouTube.

And forget about the YouTube Music family plan, that's just straight-up impossible on a sub-13 account. Then there's Spotify Kids (which is pretty much just as bad as YouTube Kids) but Spotify at least lets you lie about her age and install the regular app. (We've all heard the horror stories of Google completely shutting people out from Photos, Drive, etc. for lying about a kid's age, I'm not about to risk that just yet.)

Oh, and you're also not going to be gaming with your kid on her new phone. Google Play Games won't let sub-13s sign in with their Google account. So this PEGI-3 rated disc golf game with multiplayer but no player interaction is a total no-go.

I find it absolutely baffling how little control I have of these things as a parent. Why on earth can't I let my kid use YouTube Music? Why is she allowed to install a PEGI-3 rated multiplayer game but not play it? And why can't "sign in with my Google account" work like when she's asking permission to install an app? Seems like a pretty obvious way to go about it.

/rant

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

#152

Post by throwaway3699 »

oceanghost wrote: post #106
makomk wrote: post #42

One unintended consequence of the FTC settlement mentioned in the article is that almost no-one wants to create high quality kid-friendly content anymore, because doing so forces them to accept huge restrictions on how everyone interacts with it - now no-one can add those videos to playlists or leave comments on them, by FTC decree, even if they're adults on the main version of YouTube. So anyone producing content th…

This is infuriating as a parent. My daughter likes certain videos, and I have to write down the titles of her favorite videos to search for them every time she asks for them. (We watch YouTube on an nvidia shield). I honestly don't understand how this restriction makes sense, it all seems punitive.

My uninformed answer is that one of the things that promoted YouTube into implementing this stuff was a YT peadophile ring was discovered to be sharing 'questionable moments' with playlists, comments and timestamps. Creepy as fuck.

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

#153

Post by hnick »

dylan604 wrote: post #94
spicybright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Historically, that human was called a parent

Yes and no. From your own example, the censors and rules made it clear to parents what and when their kids could watch without the parents having to expend too much time and effort to double check everything. In theory, something branded 'YouTube Kids' would fit the same purpose and many parents probably assume it is fine based on their experience with offline media. The problem is there is no strictness or quality control like you mention.

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

#154

Post by hnick »

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…

Jeez how many do people usually have? There are just shy of 200 'interests' in my list. I'm not particularly interested in helping them out by editing it though. From what I saw the list is accurate in that it doesn't really contain anything I hate, but it's inaccurate since it's only a broken impression of all the things I like with many gaps.

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

#155

Post by ggggtez »

Yes, but I'm not sure it's the government's place to decide how much educational content is required for "kids" content.

I agree that there should be some reasonable restrictions on advertising, but deciding what is a waste of time doesn't seem like it's really in the government's authority.

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

#156

Post by jumpman_miya »

wffurr wrote: post #111
gambiting wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

Come back to me when you've come home from a long workday to deal with the results of telling a small child "no" yet again. It's not pretty, and you gotta save your "nos" for what matters. Setting up some parent to believe that letting their kid explore YouTube Kids on their own is a good idea through your marketing and then having the vast majority of the content on the service be low quality dreck with no redeeming…

I do it everyday man. I had to block a kids channel called FGTV. The dad who runs the channel is super inappropriate and I didn't want my son to learn from him. Do you think my 5 year old understood that?

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

#157

Post by detaro »

oceanghost wrote: post #106
makomk wrote: post #42

One unintended consequence of the FTC settlement mentioned in the article is that almost no-one wants to create high quality kid-friendly content anymore, because doing so forces them to accept huge restrictions on how everyone interacts with it - now no-one can add those videos to playlists or leave comments on them, by FTC decree, even if they're adults on the main version of YouTube. So anyone producing content th…

This is infuriating as a parent. My daughter likes certain videos, and I have to write down the titles of her favorite videos to search for them every time she asks for them. (We watch YouTube on an nvidia shield). I honestly don't understand how this restriction makes sense, it all seems punitive.

At least on the web version, funnily enough you can do add them to a playlist. If you do it from the search results list, not the video permalink.

You could also try if an alternative YouTube client like NewPipe works on the Shield, and brings more useful bookmarking features? (Another option would be downloading them, again with NewPipe or on a PC, and keeping the files somewhere)

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

#159

Post by crtasm »

basch wrote: post #133
dylan604 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was also a network level curator like PBS, Nickelodeon or Disney. That's kind of the point of YT though is to completely bypass the network curation. Nobody has what you want on or won't put your stuff on? Screw 'em! We bring you YouTube. The You was the big deal that bucked the network concept. So no, there's never going to be a human curator for all of YT. If channels want to curate themselves, then they may…

>That's kind of the point of YT though is to completely bypass the network curation. Instead we have algoautoplay. I'm describing opt in playlist producers. Why couldn't there be a level of "playlist curators" who exist not as channels. "Bob puts together really good playlists, whitelist all Bob approved videos." I subscribe to 10 curators and bobs my uncle. I want to follow bob for the videos he suggests not the one…

Might break a little once Bob is popular enough to be offered money (or some other reward) for featuring videos they wouldn't otherwise pick. I do think it's a good idea though.

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

#160

Post by ggggtez »

lillesvin wrote: post #151

My daughter (9) got a phone recently and we're kinda managing it through Google's Family Link and it absolutely sucks in pretty much all regards. We're only interested in absolutely minimal control just to make sure she doesn't install something stupid/dangerous, other than that we trust her to use YouTube and the likes responsibly, but that's not The Google Way. YouTube Kids was the first thing that bothered me. Goo…

The problem you have is that you created a Family Link account and thereby told google that your child was under 13.

This is intended to meet legal liabilities, and the most egregious helicopter parents needs. And due to the Childs Online Privacy Protection Act, pretty much any app that uses advertising has terms of service that prevent children from using it.

You want Family Link to be less restrictive, but apparently the lawmakers in question won't be satisfied until the only thing your child can do is watch PBS reruns.

Post reply on HN