4 ms·

Was watching a nursery rhyme channel with my 1.5 year old son...then an ad comes on for a drug trafficking series on Netflix...drugs, guns, etc

dgzl 7y ago
I sympathize but wasn't that an advertisement targeted at you specifically? Meaning, the platform didn't know you were with your child. Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material? I imagine not...
- lotu 7y ago
  Or... maybe we should use the built in webcam to determine the age of the user watching the video and use that to target ads. This could be a very effective solution. /sarcasm We simultaneously what internet companies to do exactly the right thing but don't want to allow them to collect the data needed to do that right thing. It is an ironic behavior I notice in the tech community.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    They don't need data for that; the right thing would be to not show ads on kids content, and disable the garbage recommendation algorithms too.
- point78 7y ago
  >Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material? Yes, they most definitely should. A video that specifically targets babies/children should not have ads that are 18+. Where else in the world would you view media for children and be shown ads for drug dealing dramas?
  - derefr 7y ago
    Because adults sometimes watch children's programming too (yes, really), and as far as they can tell, that's what's going on.
    - dgzl 7y ago
      This exactly. But to be honest, maybe this is an opportunity to create some kind of maturity level standard, where content shouldn't be above a set threshold, regardless of source. On YouTube For Kids, it would be lower than regular YouTube, which would be lower than RedTube. Advertising would be compelled to build in functionality that checks a page's threshold and serves ads that match. I'm not saying I agree with the idea, just putting it out there.
      - point78 7y ago
        See my reply above. Content designed and marketed to children nowhere else has 18+ advertisements. Same standard should (and has to imo) be applied to "new" media.
        derefr 7y ago
        That's because nobody else (in the streaming video space) is trying to serve ads based on who's watching the content. YouTube is in a different advertising market that nobody else has yet attempted to enter.
        point78 7y ago
        When it comes to children's programming...it shouldn't be based on who's watching, it should be based on if the content itself is designed for children or not and serve ads accordingly. That's what every advertising platform does...
    - point78 7y ago
      The content is designed and marketed to children. It doesn't matter that some adults would watch also. You would never in a million years see an ad for The Wire while watching Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers, etc. Pretty obvious why not... The same standard should be applied to "new" media.
msluyter 7y ago
We went through this with our daughter[1]. I used to laugh at all the incredibly poorly targeted ads that'd show up in the middle of the ABC's song for like car insurance or whatnot. But that was mostly an annoyance. What's more dangerous, IMHO, was the tendency for YouTube to queue up stuff that's increasingly dubious. So, you might start out with something that was high quality (see note below) but up next would be some weird apparently mass produced garbage with like people opening easter eggs, and it'd drift off from there. You really have to work to curate your own youtube content, and they don't make it easy. [1] Incidentally, Super Simple Songs was our favorite. High quality, clever, instructional videos that we felt good about letter her watch.

dgzl 7y ago

I sympathize but wasn't that an advertisement targeted at you specifically? Meaning, the platform didn't know you were with your child. Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material? I imagine not...

lotu 7y ago
Or... maybe we should use the built in webcam to determine the age of the user watching the video and use that to target ads. This could be a very effective solution. /sarcasm We simultaneously what internet companies to do exactly the right thing but don't want to allow them to collect the data needed to do that right thing. It is an ironic behavior I notice in the tech community.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  They don't need data for that; the right thing would be to not show ads on kids content, and disable the garbage recommendation algorithms too.
point78 7y ago
>Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material? Yes, they most definitely should. A video that specifically targets babies/children should not have ads that are 18+. Where else in the world would you view media for children and be shown ads for drug dealing dramas?
- derefr 7y ago
  Because adults sometimes watch children's programming too (yes, really), and as far as they can tell, that's what's going on.
  - dgzl 7y ago
    This exactly. But to be honest, maybe this is an opportunity to create some kind of maturity level standard, where content shouldn't be above a set threshold, regardless of source. On YouTube For Kids, it would be lower than regular YouTube, which would be lower than RedTube. Advertising would be compelled to build in functionality that checks a page's threshold and serves ads that match. I'm not saying I agree with the idea, just putting it out there.
    - point78 7y ago
      See my reply above. Content designed and marketed to children nowhere else has 18+ advertisements. Same standard should (and has to imo) be applied to "new" media.
      - derefr 7y ago
        That's because nobody else (in the streaming video space) is trying to serve ads based on who's watching the content. YouTube is in a different advertising market that nobody else has yet attempted to enter.
        point78 7y ago
        When it comes to children's programming...it shouldn't be based on who's watching, it should be based on if the content itself is designed for children or not and serve ads accordingly. That's what every advertising platform does...
  - point78 7y ago
    The content is designed and marketed to children. It doesn't matter that some adults would watch also. You would never in a million years see an ad for The Wire while watching Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers, etc. Pretty obvious why not... The same standard should be applied to "new" media.

msluyter 7y ago

We went through this with our daughter[1]. I used to laugh at all the incredibly poorly targeted ads that'd show up in the middle of the ABC's song for like car insurance or whatnot. But that was mostly an annoyance. What's more dangerous, IMHO, was the tendency for YouTube to queue up stuff that's increasingly dubious. So, you might start out with something that was high quality (see note below) but up next would be some weird apparently mass produced garbage with like people opening easter eggs, and it'd drift off from there. You really have to work to curate your own youtube content, and they don't make it easy. [1] Incidentally, Super Simple Songs was our favorite. High quality, clever, instructional videos that we felt good about letter her watch.