5 ms·

I'm really not fond of rules that force you to make black and white decisions on things that are inherently in shades of gray. I watch a lot of stuff with my 5

I'm really not fond of rules that force you to make black and white decisions on things that are inherently in shades of gray. I watch a lot of stuff with my 5 year old daughter -- whether on YouTube or elsewhere -- than we both seem to equally enjoy. Recent ones include Star Wars Resistance, The Mandalorian, Spirited Away, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Incredibles 2. On YouTube we watch "how it's made" videos, as well as a lot of music videos, such as Taylor Swift and Billish Eilish. A lot of stuff probably has a median age of viewers that is right around the cutoff age, 13. But lots of over-18 adults like them too and would watch them completely in the absence of kids. Are these things "for kids"? I don't see how you would make that determination.

shotashotshota 7y ago
Additionally, people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. This is not going to help anyone. Unless parents are willing to take off these devices from their kids they will discover these videos in 5 video watches.
- mattrp 7y ago
  We really struggle with YouTube - for ex. You can’t block it because Kahn Academy uses YouTube. And quite a lot of kids content is really informative and great content. But I can’t tell you how many times we are watching and it literally spirals out of control. One second you’re watching an official frozen 2 trailer, the next you’re watching some jerk’s fan movie made of clips from the original frozen interspersed with wildly inappropriate dialogue and content from other non kid movies. A better scenario is simply to turn off the device and as a lifelong programmer this conclusion really saddens me.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Do they still have the YouTube Kids app or whatever it is with whitelisted content?
    - lstamour 7y ago
      Unless they’ve changed things, I thought the YouTube Kids app was still algorithm-driven?
    - mattrp 7y ago
      It’s even worse. There were some articles awhile back about just how scary awful YouTube kids was...
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Maybe this is a bit out there as a solution, but you could set up Streama (1) and set up a directory where the videos get loaded in. Then you can allow your children to access Streama and they can watch without worry. (1) https://github.com/streamaserver/streama https://github.com/streamaserver/streama
    - mattrp 7y ago
      interesting solution but for now just turning it off seems to be much preferred. We’ve noticed our kids engage their imaginations and are much better behaved the less time they spend online.
      - ghthor 7y ago
        We've noticed the same thing about out 9 year old girl. He behavior radically changes for the worst after shes been watching videos of her choosing from youtube.
  - buboard 7y ago
    Why dont they promote the use of user-curated playlists? Kids should be limited to a standard youtube curriculum; they re not for experiments.
    - Already__Taken 7y ago
      They can do it, Our g-suite side of YT lets me assign users that can approve videos or channels for the org. It's useless because once you log into YT you can't make playlists or I think subscribe without making a channel, by default that's first name/last name. even if I could I can't stop them uploading content. So the tiny org proofing tools that are there I can't use anyway. I swear YT don't even use their own product.
    - shotashotshota 7y ago
      Because every company ever (especially software companies) are all about making moneys and employing 1000s of new employees to curate contents isn't very profitable. They will try to automate everything even if it doesn't work because they know this is the future. Until we have perfected the art, we are stuck with this ridiculous misjudgement by the algorithm because its really, really, dumb. Even if they do hire actual real human, they hire them as cheap labors, not as legitimate jobs (see Facebook)
      - buboard 7y ago
        > new employees to curate contents isn't very profitable No i mean user-curated playlists
- judge2020 7y ago
  > people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. That's the goal - if this is checked by the creator (for the specific video or for the entire channel), it will have personalized ads disabled for the video plus disable whatever tracking systems Google has for regular watching.
Stratoscope 7y ago
I got the email from YouTube a week or so ago, and it seemed clear to me that they were not asking "is your content OK for kids to watch?" They were asking "is your content directed toward kids?" The FTC page confirms that and gives some examples. To pull an example from memory, I used to watch Blue's Clues with my kids when they were little. Even though I also enjoyed the humor and creativity of the show, and the experience of watching it with them, it was clearly directed toward children. OTOH, my dogs and cats have a YouTube channel where they show off their playtime adventures. It's completely child-friendly, but it's not specifically directed toward kids, it's just dogs and cats playing around. So I didn't mark the channel or any of the videos as being directed toward children. I'm not familiar with all the videos you mentioned, but the ones I recognize would seem to be in the same category as my dog and cat videos: not directed toward children.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  On one hand, yes, that's definitely what the FTC is trying to say. In their complaint against Youtube, all of the channels are completely without a doubt directed towards kids in the normal sense. But if I'm, like, a Mario speedrunner, when I read that the FTC's indica of child-targeted content include "the use of animated characters" and "enabled settings that made their content appear when users searched for the names of popular toys", I think it's reasonable to be concerned. The FTC should (but I'm hopeful they will!) clarify that "directed towards children" only applies when you're specifically trying to get kids to watch it.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Your Mario speedrun is the perfect example of why people are worried. The FTC listed criteria that might get your videos be considered as "directed at kids" and a this type of content would tick a lot of those boxes while clearly not being directed at kids.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  I'm aware it is about "directed at" vs. "ok for". Blues Clues is clearly "directed at kids". My point isn't that there aren't things that are black and things that are white, but that there are also things that are gray. I tried to choose ones that are in the gray area, but if you consider the ones I listed "not directed toward children", surely there are ones whose median audience is slightly younger, that would be considered to be in that gray area. Since you mentioned it, care to share your dog and cat videos link? :) Here's my not-directed-at-kids playlist that stars a kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6KuQYE3hDU&list=PLSz9W2tWBYvpw1zUTvjDJs7k1D2ZP7PVi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6KuQYE3hDU&list=PLSz9W2tWBY...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
manigandham 7y ago
There are a few guidelines but the FTC also has a general audience category. Youtube is ignoring this and forcing a choice because it's easier to implement. They're also ignoring creators that are asking for age-gating with logged-in users only to prevent their video classification from being contested in the future.
blondin 7y ago
you guys remember when old looney tunes and old tom & jerry were appropriate for kids programs? nowadays they are not. a few of them are now on youtube right next to the recent "appropriate" ones. so yes, that line is very blurry...
- viraptor 7y ago
  Why do you think they're not appropriate anymore? Not necessarily disagreeing, just curious about the opinion. There's animated violence, lots of racial stereotypes, unsafe house behaviour, etc. Is it just an overall combination of them that you think is not appropriate, or something specific?
  - linguae 7y ago
    Standards for what is socially considered appropriate for children has changed over time, at least in American society. For example, in one of the DVD re-releases of the late 1960s-early 1970s seasons of Sesame Street, a children's television program that airs on PBS, there is a disclaimer that says that these re-released episodes are intended for adults and not for children due to the changed social norms. And these changes have nothing to do with racism or cartoon violence; these changes have to do with other norms such as children talking to strangers. This YouTube video has a segment of an interview that discusses this further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vow6p7uKVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vow6p7uKVw
OnlineHeaven 7y ago
Dude I'm gonna need a link to your dog & cat playtime adventure channel

shotashotshota 7y ago

Additionally, people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. This is not going to help anyone. Unless parents are willing to take off these devices from their kids they will discover these videos in 5 video watches.

mattrp 7y ago
We really struggle with YouTube - for ex. You can’t block it because Kahn Academy uses YouTube. And quite a lot of kids content is really informative and great content. But I can’t tell you how many times we are watching and it literally spirals out of control. One second you’re watching an official frozen 2 trailer, the next you’re watching some jerk’s fan movie made of clips from the original frozen interspersed with wildly inappropriate dialogue and content from other non kid movies. A better scenario is simply to turn off the device and as a lifelong programmer this conclusion really saddens me.
- trevyn 7y ago
  Do they still have the YouTube Kids app or whatever it is with whitelisted content?
  - lstamour 7y ago
    Unless they’ve changed things, I thought the YouTube Kids app was still algorithm-driven?
  - mattrp 7y ago
    It’s even worse. There were some articles awhile back about just how scary awful YouTube kids was...
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Maybe this is a bit out there as a solution, but you could set up Streama (1) and set up a directory where the videos get loaded in. Then you can allow your children to access Streama and they can watch without worry. (1) https://github.com/streamaserver/streama https://github.com/streamaserver/streama
  - mattrp 7y ago
    interesting solution but for now just turning it off seems to be much preferred. We’ve noticed our kids engage their imaginations and are much better behaved the less time they spend online.
    - ghthor 7y ago
      We've noticed the same thing about out 9 year old girl. He behavior radically changes for the worst after shes been watching videos of her choosing from youtube.
- buboard 7y ago
  Why dont they promote the use of user-curated playlists? Kids should be limited to a standard youtube curriculum; they re not for experiments.
  - Already__Taken 7y ago
    They can do it, Our g-suite side of YT lets me assign users that can approve videos or channels for the org. It's useless because once you log into YT you can't make playlists or I think subscribe without making a channel, by default that's first name/last name. even if I could I can't stop them uploading content. So the tiny org proofing tools that are there I can't use anyway. I swear YT don't even use their own product.
  - shotashotshota 7y ago
    Because every company ever (especially software companies) are all about making moneys and employing 1000s of new employees to curate contents isn't very profitable. They will try to automate everything even if it doesn't work because they know this is the future. Until we have perfected the art, we are stuck with this ridiculous misjudgement by the algorithm because its really, really, dumb. Even if they do hire actual real human, they hire them as cheap labors, not as legitimate jobs (see Facebook)
    - buboard 7y ago
      > new employees to curate contents isn't very profitable No i mean user-curated playlists
judge2020 7y ago
> people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. That's the goal - if this is checked by the creator (for the specific video or for the entire channel), it will have personalized ads disabled for the video plus disable whatever tracking systems Google has for regular watching.

Stratoscope 7y ago

I got the email from YouTube a week or so ago, and it seemed clear to me that they were not asking "is your content OK for kids to watch?" They were asking "is your content directed toward kids?" The FTC page confirms that and gives some examples. To pull an example from memory, I used to watch Blue's Clues with my kids when they were little. Even though I also enjoyed the humor and creativity of the show, and the experience of watching it with them, it was clearly directed toward children. OTOH, my dogs and cats have a YouTube channel where they show off their playtime adventures. It's completely child-friendly, but it's not specifically directed toward kids, it's just dogs and cats playing around. So I didn't mark the channel or any of the videos as being directed toward children. I'm not familiar with all the videos you mentioned, but the ones I recognize would seem to be in the same category as my dog and cat videos: not directed toward children.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
On one hand, yes, that's definitely what the FTC is trying to say. In their complaint against Youtube, all of the channels are completely without a doubt directed towards kids in the normal sense. But if I'm, like, a Mario speedrunner, when I read that the FTC's indica of child-targeted content include "the use of animated characters" and "enabled settings that made their content appear when users searched for the names of popular toys", I think it's reasonable to be concerned. The FTC should (but I'm hopeful they will!) clarify that "directed towards children" only applies when you're specifically trying to get kids to watch it.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Your Mario speedrun is the perfect example of why people are worried. The FTC listed criteria that might get your videos be considered as "directed at kids" and a this type of content would tick a lot of those boxes while clearly not being directed at kids.
robbrown451 7y ago
I'm aware it is about "directed at" vs. "ok for". Blues Clues is clearly "directed at kids". My point isn't that there aren't things that are black and things that are white, but that there are also things that are gray. I tried to choose ones that are in the gray area, but if you consider the ones I listed "not directed toward children", surely there are ones whose median audience is slightly younger, that would be considered to be in that gray area. Since you mentioned it, care to share your dog and cat videos link? :) Here's my not-directed-at-kids playlist that stars a kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6KuQYE3hDU&list=PLSz9W2tWBYvpw1zUTvjDJs7k1D2ZP7PVi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6KuQYE3hDU&list=PLSz9W2tWBY...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

manigandham 7y ago

There are a few guidelines but the FTC also has a general audience category. Youtube is ignoring this and forcing a choice because it's easier to implement. They're also ignoring creators that are asking for age-gating with logged-in users only to prevent their video classification from being contested in the future.

blondin 7y ago

you guys remember when old looney tunes and old tom & jerry were appropriate for kids programs? nowadays they are not. a few of them are now on youtube right next to the recent "appropriate" ones. so yes, that line is very blurry...

viraptor 7y ago
Why do you think they're not appropriate anymore? Not necessarily disagreeing, just curious about the opinion. There's animated violence, lots of racial stereotypes, unsafe house behaviour, etc. Is it just an overall combination of them that you think is not appropriate, or something specific?
- linguae 7y ago
  Standards for what is socially considered appropriate for children has changed over time, at least in American society. For example, in one of the DVD re-releases of the late 1960s-early 1970s seasons of Sesame Street, a children's television program that airs on PBS, there is a disclaimer that says that these re-released episodes are intended for adults and not for children due to the changed social norms. And these changes have nothing to do with racism or cartoon violence; these changes have to do with other norms such as children talking to strangers. This YouTube video has a segment of an interview that discusses this further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vow6p7uKVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vow6p7uKVw

OnlineHeaven 7y ago

Dude I'm gonna need a link to your dog & cat playtime adventure channel