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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

#231

Post by nullsense »

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…

As a parent now going through this the whole thing I can't help but think of the "worse is better" essay. The conclusion I've come to is that we dove headlong into the promises of "better" technology and that worked for a long time, but since the rise of social media and smartphones we've crossed this threshold where "better is worse".

I grew up with a handful of channels and I can't really say it was much of a hardship. When I compare to the endless doomscrolling of YouTube for yet another Minecraft video I see my boy doing I can't help but feel like the algorithms have got his mind in a vice already. The technology seems better in every way, but the negatives are also amplified.

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

#232

Post by nullsense »

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…

Pet food and pet care supplies. I don't, and never will own a pet.

Maybe too many cat videos?

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

#233

Post by nullsense »

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…

>It's junk food ADHD content

ADHD isn't an adjective.

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

#234

Post by howaboutnope »

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…

> it was like he was being lobotomized, and begged for them constantly

https://imgur.com/a/8xPGPJ7

Thanks to people dismissing ElsaGate as "just weird videos", that issue never got the attention it actually deserved. Aside from the countless rationalizations, part of the blame is on YT in my books; mostly for saying "it's fine, we'll deal with it" instead of collecting data, analyzing it, and making the results public to warn parents.

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

#235

Post by dasKrokodil »

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…

>It's not pretty, and you gotta save your "nos" for what matters.

Yes, but I'd argue that this matters.

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

#236

Post by yellowapple »

lmkg wrote: post #72
dieortin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And, while that's not literally how they're made

You sure? After watching a couple of 'em I ain't sure it's even physically possible for a human to come up with something so absurdly inhuman.

It's like if that "surreal entertainment" channel branched out into actual kids' content instead of parodies thereof.

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

#237

Post by RGamma »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #192
_0ffh wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liberally use the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" options in the menu. Works okay for me.

These options are literally the only way for me to even get new recommendations. YouTube "helpfully" fills my recommendations with videos I've already watched, videos from channels I'm already subscribed to and watched, its own "mix" playlists of songs I listen to, and totally random "topics" it thinks I'm interested in. I have to "Don't recommend" every channel I subscribe to and "Not interested" every video I click…

This started a couple of years ago. I remember quite distinctly when suddenly the suggestions were injected with things I already watched instead of actual on-topic suggestions. Tried disabling the watch history with mild success.

This was also around the time I just turned off the entire thing via DF YouTube :)

I now view YT like a dumb video hosting service; can't be bothered to fight with its stupid UI or inexplicable ML background fuckery.

Maybe some day they'll equip users with the tools that are appropriate to browse the biggest video platform of all time. They could take a hint from Steam on how to do that (or just use common sense)

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

#238

Post by fogihujy »

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…

It was a slippery slope. I'd like to claim that if parents spent less time staring at a screen in front of their children, there would also be less children staring at mind-numbing content online. The fact is, however, that many simply dump their kids in front of Youtube just so that they can spend time on social media themselves.

In other words: If we want to break kids' screen addictions then we need to start with their parents.

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

#239

Post by crispyambulance »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #138
dylan604 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean, 1.2M views for the whole channel is... almost nothing, in terms of $? Surely not enough to affore new comfy bed and pillows?

I expect that there are whole networks of channels that put out this stuff. The channel in question hasn't been active in a year. The "content creators" probably don't depend on any one channel to deliver their "creations".

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

#240

Post by skinkestek »

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…

Generally agree and I loathe those (and many educational videos generally) so much that I far prefer that my kids watch Grizzy or Tom & Jerry, that is at least really funny sometimes and contrary to pretend-instructional so far out that it is obviously not real.

(Although what I like most is to sit and watch crazy repair videos together with them: welding of excavator arms, disassembly and restoration of everyday items etc.)

However, credit were credit is due: one of my kid spent some time on those channels around age 4 to 5 and actually surprised me by having learned English numbers, and not superficially: I was totally amazed when that kid could not only count to 20 in English but also instantly translate between the language his mother talks and English. Compared to other kids I know just being able to consistently count to 20 in one language might often be a challenge.

A little more criticism: in addition to pretend-educational videos which I find mightily annoying there were also a number of kids-unboxing-box-after-box-of-expensive-toys which seemed to me to be the worst.

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