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Some of the features that get disabled for "children's content" are a bit surprising: Playback in the Miniplayer Save to playlist and Save to watch later Lik

Some of the features that get disabled for "children's content" are a bit surprising: Playback in the Miniplayer Save to playlist and Save to watch later Likes and dislikes on YouTube Music Donate buttons I guess it's hard to do these in a way that is compliant with the privacy rules, or they're worried that kids will donate $1000 to their favorite Youtuber with Mom and Dad's credit card? It will be interesting to see how good their machine learning is at identifying "kid's content". From reading the FTC page, the delineation seems a bit arbitrary. I suppose we'll see if there's a financial impact on Youtubers that are borderline (is someone playing a video game considered children's content? What if the videogame is rated M? Will the tiebreaker be statistics about their actual viewers?)

jacquesm 7y ago
CYA. It's either that or denying kids access to youtube altogether and that is very hard to implement, so better to disable those features that might lead to legal exposure.
- ngold 7y ago
  Google seems to opt for the nuke it from space option as a 1st response. Let god or whatever sort it out.
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    YouTube is politically popular to attack, so they know they aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt. And when regulators come after Google they seem to like aiming their fines in the billions of dollars range. So it seems prudent to respond to any inkling of having given a regulator an excuse to investigate by burning the entire thing down and vowing never to go near the wreckage ever again.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vageli 7y ago
I don't understand the prevention of adding to a playlist. Now I can't make a custom playlist of children's content for my kid?
- zozbot234 7y ago
  You could use local browser bookmarks. No privacy issue with those!
  - wtracy 7y ago
    Having a favorites list that follows you across devices is nice. Being able to publish a publicly viewable playlist is nice. Also, on mobile that would require you to exit the app and move to a browser. Figuring out how to pull up a video from the app in a browser requires a certain level of tech fluency. (You have to know to hit "share", "copy link", paste it into the browser, then somehow force the browser to not punt you back to the YouTube app.)
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  My uneducated guess might have been the easy implementation of disallowing both children's and non children's content in a public playlist.
- jaimex2 7y ago
  I guess Youtube is covering itself from someone alleging custom playlists is a form of tracking.
- jpollock 7y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/youtube-pedophiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/youtube-pe... and related.
- Slartie 7y ago
  Maybe this is intended to prevent "YouTube babysitting" aka "make a long playlist, park kid in front of youtube, go and do something else"? Without the ability to schedule up hours of content, one is forced to look after the child regularly, even if it's just to start the next dull bit of entertainment. Though if that was the motivation I'd expect them to also disable auto-play of next video for content targeted at kids.
rexf 7y ago
Unintended purchases are a real issue. I've witnessed first hand how young kids tend to press anything on the screen without any thought. I saw them press and nearly purchase youtube's "Super Chat, a tool that lets you pay to pin comments on live streams" without knowing what it was.
- jethro_tell 7y ago
  Especially if it gets in the way of the content they are looking to use/view, they are just clicking buttons to get things moving and then next thing you know your google account bought an app.
  - xvector 7y ago
    Do you guys seriously put your kids on an account with credit card access? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      All that needs to be true is that enough people make this mistake to warrant the UI change. No condescension or lecture needed.
      - nsomaru 7y ago
        “Enough people” does not make a questionable act less questionable
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      Unless you're giving them their own device it's easy to make a mistake and have an account with a CC accessible.
      - jethro_tell 7y ago
        Even with a full password for confirmation, or without a CC, you can still see them click the link. The behavior is the same, and the reason that takes you to a purchase page is because someone is doing it.
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Are those perhaps all features that require either 1) to be logged in, or 2) to use a more complex version of the site that requires cookies?
tshaddox 7y ago
I think we'll find that distinguishing between "children's content" and "family-friendly content" is difficult not just for YouTube's algorithms but for humans as well. I suspect we'll see even more channels get hit by this simply because they're not identifiably "adult" in any way.
- tsmarsh 7y ago
  Yeah. For example, I don't find Veggietales to be family friendly. Its a minority opinion, but I can't get it removed from my kids profiles. So now I have to talk to my children, ugh.
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    I mean, most of the shows for kids look extremely creepy and unsettling to me. The introduction of a world where everything is 'fair' and 'nice' controlled by 'authorities' is something I notice often in those shows. The faces are big and stretched out from reality as a distraction from the theme. Some of them encourage weird experimentation that can go wrong easily while pushing for odd stereotypes. Good guy beats the bad guy with violence... punitive justice.. fair bit seems sexual, promoting eating disorders, creepy parental expectations and misleading nutritional science.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I watched veggietales in school as a kid, but I don't remember much about other than vague recollections of a joseph and the many colored coat adaptation. I'm just curious, what do you find not to be family friendly about the show?
    - dodobirdlord 7y ago
      I imagine they mean that they don’t consider a show that teaches a particular religious tradition as fact to be appropriate for children outside of that religious tradition.
    - danans 7y ago
      Not the OP, but if you're not Christian, that show might not be friendly to your family as it is explicitly targeted at Christians or people the shows creators hope will become Christians. So that may not go over so well with, for example, a Jewish or agnostic family.

jacquesm 7y ago

CYA. It's either that or denying kids access to youtube altogether and that is very hard to implement, so better to disable those features that might lead to legal exposure.

ngold 7y ago
Google seems to opt for the nuke it from space option as a 1st response. Let god or whatever sort it out.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  YouTube is politically popular to attack, so they know they aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt. And when regulators come after Google they seem to like aiming their fines in the billions of dollars range. So it seems prudent to respond to any inkling of having given a regulator an excuse to investigate by burning the entire thing down and vowing never to go near the wreckage ever again.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vageli 7y ago

I don't understand the prevention of adding to a playlist. Now I can't make a custom playlist of children's content for my kid?

zozbot234 7y ago
You could use local browser bookmarks. No privacy issue with those!
- wtracy 7y ago
  Having a favorites list that follows you across devices is nice. Being able to publish a publicly viewable playlist is nice. Also, on mobile that would require you to exit the app and move to a browser. Figuring out how to pull up a video from the app in a browser requires a certain level of tech fluency. (You have to know to hit "share", "copy link", paste it into the browser, then somehow force the browser to not punt you back to the YouTube app.)
jimktrains2 7y ago
My uneducated guess might have been the easy implementation of disallowing both children's and non children's content in a public playlist.
jaimex2 7y ago
I guess Youtube is covering itself from someone alleging custom playlists is a form of tracking.
jpollock 7y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/youtube-pedophiles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/youtube-pe... and related.
Slartie 7y ago
Maybe this is intended to prevent "YouTube babysitting" aka "make a long playlist, park kid in front of youtube, go and do something else"? Without the ability to schedule up hours of content, one is forced to look after the child regularly, even if it's just to start the next dull bit of entertainment. Though if that was the motivation I'd expect them to also disable auto-play of next video for content targeted at kids.

rexf 7y ago

Unintended purchases are a real issue. I've witnessed first hand how young kids tend to press anything on the screen without any thought. I saw them press and nearly purchase youtube's "Super Chat, a tool that lets you pay to pin comments on live streams" without knowing what it was.

jethro_tell 7y ago
Especially if it gets in the way of the content they are looking to use/view, they are just clicking buttons to get things moving and then next thing you know your google account bought an app.
- xvector 7y ago
  Do you guys seriously put your kids on an account with credit card access? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    All that needs to be true is that enough people make this mistake to warrant the UI change. No condescension or lecture needed.
    - nsomaru 7y ago
      “Enough people” does not make a questionable act less questionable
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Unless you're giving them their own device it's easy to make a mistake and have an account with a CC accessible.
    - jethro_tell 7y ago
      Even with a full password for confirmation, or without a CC, you can still see them click the link. The behavior is the same, and the reason that takes you to a purchase page is because someone is doing it.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

Are those perhaps all features that require either 1) to be logged in, or 2) to use a more complex version of the site that requires cookies?

tshaddox 7y ago

I think we'll find that distinguishing between "children's content" and "family-friendly content" is difficult not just for YouTube's algorithms but for humans as well. I suspect we'll see even more channels get hit by this simply because they're not identifiably "adult" in any way.

tsmarsh 7y ago
Yeah. For example, I don't find Veggietales to be family friendly. Its a minority opinion, but I can't get it removed from my kids profiles. So now I have to talk to my children, ugh.
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  I mean, most of the shows for kids look extremely creepy and unsettling to me. The introduction of a world where everything is 'fair' and 'nice' controlled by 'authorities' is something I notice often in those shows. The faces are big and stretched out from reality as a distraction from the theme. Some of them encourage weird experimentation that can go wrong easily while pushing for odd stereotypes. Good guy beats the bad guy with violence... punitive justice.. fair bit seems sexual, promoting eating disorders, creepy parental expectations and misleading nutritional science.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I watched veggietales in school as a kid, but I don't remember much about other than vague recollections of a joseph and the many colored coat adaptation. I'm just curious, what do you find not to be family friendly about the show?
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    I imagine they mean that they don’t consider a show that teaches a particular religious tradition as fact to be appropriate for children outside of that religious tradition.
  - danans 7y ago
    Not the OP, but if you're not Christian, that show might not be friendly to your family as it is explicitly targeted at Christians or people the shows creators hope will become Christians. So that may not go over so well with, for example, a Jewish or agnostic family.