4 ms·

The real problem is much worse than just data collection. The children's content on Youtube is the most vacuous garbage in existence and young children have was

by 3131s 7y ago

The real problem is much worse than just data collection. The children's content on Youtube is the most vacuous garbage in existence and young children have wasted billions of hours watching it on autoplay.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
This differs in no way, except for the name "YouTube", from the objection to children watching television that goes back several decades.
- OrgNet 7y ago
  PBS-Kids is on average much better then YouTube-Kids
- sli 7y ago
  Children's television didn't include a nearly endless flood of horrifying and sometimes trauma-inducing autogenerated content that (illegally) leverages pop culture and otherwise kid-friendly characters, all just to push as many ads as possible into kids' faces. There's always been problematic or otherwise weird children's content, and content that was mostly just an ad (80s cartoons were bad about that), but some of the stuff you can find on YouTube is in a whole new class of questionable. At least some of those 80s toy commercial cartoons were still entertaining in some way.
  - solotronics 7y ago
    Exactly, it's unconstrained algo generated content that just seeks out the weirdest stuff that will capture a childs attention. It has been discussed on here before and it is super creepy. In 10 years people will be looking back at this in shock that it happened and there will be downstream affects on the kids exposed to it. It's literally programming weird stuff into the psyche of these young children.
    - naravara 7y ago
      >In 10 years people will be looking back at this in shock that it happened and there will be downstream affects on the kids exposed to it. It's literally programming weird stuff into the psyche of these young children. ~20 years ago people were deeply concerned about the impact and influence that sophisticated television and radio advertising campaigns were having on people, culture, and the economy. It's gotten so bad now that we seem to have forgotten about how creeped out people were about the comparatively tame advertising through broadcast media. It's not safe to assume the world will march forward to be better or more moral as time goes on. We're just as likely to regress as progress, and the myth that progress is a passive endeavor makes it more likely that we won't.
      - PeterStuer 7y ago
        Clearly their worries were completely unfounded given how sophisticated, nuanced, literate, economically sound and overall well mannered the current electorate behaves.
    - dahfizz 7y ago
      People have said the same exact thing about every kind of media ever invented. Books, magazines, television, music, and now YouTube. Do you have anything to actually substantiatiate your claims?
- gregmac 7y ago
  The content on YouTube absolutely differs from the content on regular television. Most children's television content has some value: a lesson, moral or at least an actual story. Others have mentioned the horrifying inappropriate content, but even ignoring that, there is a mind-boggling amount of content on YouTube that is really devoid of value (at least in terms of what I want my kids watching): * Nursery rhymes -- which is not so bad, but it just keeps going forever * People (often adults) dressed up as children's story characters, just goofing around * People (not always kids) literally just playing with toys * People (not always kids) doing some mind-numbing repetitive task (for 10's of minutes) like opening kinder eggs, molding play doh or pouring glitter on things
  - beart 7y ago
    Is there any evidence that this is different, better or worse, than traditional television?
    - xmprt 7y ago
      Content farms thrive by children's content on YouTube. Something similar could never exist on other curated platforms like TV just as a matter of scale. A content farm can put out 100 ten minute videos of the same type just by swapping out some assets and keywords. At least one of those will get somewhat popular. This is even more devious with MCNs where multiple channels group up but revenue goes to a single entity. If YouTube flags a single channel, it doesn't hurt the entire MCN so you can get around the spam filters that YouTube almost certainly has in place.
    - igammarays 7y ago
      Are you going to wait for evidence that feeding garbage to your kids is bad for them before stopping it?
    - m463 7y ago
      I wonder the same thing. For instance, I suspect a lot of kids do not have proper fear of wild animals, because from television they know animals are friendly, and some can even talk. Additionally, bad guys wear black and have scars, while good guys are clean shaven and wear attractive clothing.
- mzs 7y ago
  Maybe children's TV doesn't even need to be all that good. https://www.theawl.com/2012/03/farting-puppets-the-terrific-bizarre-world-of-danish-kids-tv/ https://www.theawl.com/2012/03/farting-puppets-the-terrific-...
- 3131s 7y ago
  No, you clearly are not aware of what a typical piece of children's content on Youtube is like. I also have a low opinion of the average cable TV kids show, but the two are not even comparable in quality.
newguy1234 7y ago
It was also exposed that pedophiles were talking to children on youtube through comments and getting them to do inappropriate stuff like telling them to do the "Popsicle challenge" or "stretch challenge" to basically get them to unintentionally expose themselves. These kids actually have youtube accounts, know how to use a phone to record themselves and were basically doing these challenges then immediately after uploading the video to YT. Parents were completely oblivious to this. The parents think their kids are dumber than they really are. "My son? He couldn't figure out how to register a youtube account" etc. meanwhile the kid has been uploading daily for months.

by 3131s 7y ago

thaumasiotes 7y ago

This differs in no way, except for the name "YouTube", from the objection to children watching television that goes back several decades.

OrgNet 7y ago
PBS-Kids is on average much better then YouTube-Kids
sli 7y ago
Children's television didn't include a nearly endless flood of horrifying and sometimes trauma-inducing autogenerated content that (illegally) leverages pop culture and otherwise kid-friendly characters, all just to push as many ads as possible into kids' faces. There's always been problematic or otherwise weird children's content, and content that was mostly just an ad (80s cartoons were bad about that), but some of the stuff you can find on YouTube is in a whole new class of questionable. At least some of those 80s toy commercial cartoons were still entertaining in some way.
- solotronics 7y ago
  Exactly, it's unconstrained algo generated content that just seeks out the weirdest stuff that will capture a childs attention. It has been discussed on here before and it is super creepy. In 10 years people will be looking back at this in shock that it happened and there will be downstream affects on the kids exposed to it. It's literally programming weird stuff into the psyche of these young children.
  - naravara 7y ago
    >In 10 years people will be looking back at this in shock that it happened and there will be downstream affects on the kids exposed to it. It's literally programming weird stuff into the psyche of these young children. ~20 years ago people were deeply concerned about the impact and influence that sophisticated television and radio advertising campaigns were having on people, culture, and the economy. It's gotten so bad now that we seem to have forgotten about how creeped out people were about the comparatively tame advertising through broadcast media. It's not safe to assume the world will march forward to be better or more moral as time goes on. We're just as likely to regress as progress, and the myth that progress is a passive endeavor makes it more likely that we won't.
    - PeterStuer 7y ago
      Clearly their worries were completely unfounded given how sophisticated, nuanced, literate, economically sound and overall well mannered the current electorate behaves.
  - dahfizz 7y ago
    People have said the same exact thing about every kind of media ever invented. Books, magazines, television, music, and now YouTube. Do you have anything to actually substantiatiate your claims?
gregmac 7y ago
The content on YouTube absolutely differs from the content on regular television. Most children's television content has some value: a lesson, moral or at least an actual story. Others have mentioned the horrifying inappropriate content, but even ignoring that, there is a mind-boggling amount of content on YouTube that is really devoid of value (at least in terms of what I want my kids watching): * Nursery rhymes -- which is not so bad, but it just keeps going forever * People (often adults) dressed up as children's story characters, just goofing around * People (not always kids) literally just playing with toys * People (not always kids) doing some mind-numbing repetitive task (for 10's of minutes) like opening kinder eggs, molding play doh or pouring glitter on things
- beart 7y ago
  Is there any evidence that this is different, better or worse, than traditional television?
  - xmprt 7y ago
    Content farms thrive by children's content on YouTube. Something similar could never exist on other curated platforms like TV just as a matter of scale. A content farm can put out 100 ten minute videos of the same type just by swapping out some assets and keywords. At least one of those will get somewhat popular. This is even more devious with MCNs where multiple channels group up but revenue goes to a single entity. If YouTube flags a single channel, it doesn't hurt the entire MCN so you can get around the spam filters that YouTube almost certainly has in place.
  - igammarays 7y ago
    Are you going to wait for evidence that feeding garbage to your kids is bad for them before stopping it?
  - m463 7y ago
    I wonder the same thing. For instance, I suspect a lot of kids do not have proper fear of wild animals, because from television they know animals are friendly, and some can even talk. Additionally, bad guys wear black and have scars, while good guys are clean shaven and wear attractive clothing.
mzs 7y ago
Maybe children's TV doesn't even need to be all that good. https://www.theawl.com/2012/03/farting-puppets-the-terrific-bizarre-world-of-danish-kids-tv/ https://www.theawl.com/2012/03/farting-puppets-the-terrific-...
3131s 7y ago
No, you clearly are not aware of what a typical piece of children's content on Youtube is like. I also have a low opinion of the average cable TV kids show, but the two are not even comparable in quality.

newguy1234 7y ago

It was also exposed that pedophiles were talking to children on youtube through comments and getting them to do inappropriate stuff like telling them to do the "Popsicle challenge" or "stretch challenge" to basically get them to unintentionally expose themselves. These kids actually have youtube accounts, know how to use a phone to record themselves and were basically doing these challenges then immediately after uploading the video to YT. Parents were completely oblivious to this. The parents think their kids are dumber than they really are. "My son? He couldn't figure out how to register a youtube account" etc. meanwhile the kid has been uploading daily for months.