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Show HN: I tried making YouTube safer for my kids

41 points by beechwood 1y ago

beechwood 1y ago
This is not a fancy web app. I simply made it because I'm a single parent and while I'm trying to make dinner my 9 year old is down some YouTube rabbit hole. I figured I would share because I can't be the only parent that has this issue. So I made a web app where I could add channels that I approve. There is no algo recommendations in the side bar, just the video. Please share feedback if you have any.
- nofalsescotsman 1y ago
  So is the idea here, that you block access to the YouTube website directly, but allow watching through approved channels on https://maekitsafe.com https://maekitsafe.com? If so, I'd like to see some detailed instructions for users on how they can actively block YouTube.com while still allowing embed to play on your site. I think that may trip a lot of non-tech people up.
  - beechwood 1y ago
    That is correct. I can add some detailed FAQ. Thank you for the feedback.
e-clinton 1y ago
Interesting idea, but I’d take it a step further. I want to control exactly what videos the kids can watch, not just the channel.
- beechwood 1y ago
  I added the ability to exclude shorts. Is it wrong to assume if the channel is ok, that all videos within the channel are ok?
- derwiki 1y ago
  yt-dlp + Plex
- cookiengineer 1y ago
  Minitube is pretty great, and uses MPV (and therefore yt-dlp) behind the scenes. It has filters that are really neat, and is very minimalistic. I personally use it, too, to avoid distracting myself and to actively search for everything I consume. [1] https://flavio.tordini.org/minitube https://flavio.tordini.org/minitube
  - xrd 1y ago
    Does it have parental controls, or a way of at least seeing what the kids are watching? I can't tell from looking at that page.
    - beechwood 1y ago
      the idea is that you trust the channel that you add. so assuming every video on that channel is safe....
cdolan 1y ago
I was working on this myself! Also my family uses the name beechwood (its a street we grew up on). Is this an alternative universe? Love the implementation. I'd really like to block Youtube on my firewall but let it through via this tool with a proxy or something. Can I get this to load on the SmartTV, too?
- beechwood 1y ago
  I also grew up on Beechwood. Small world :)
  - cdolan 1y ago
    In Pittsburgh, by chance??
scottyeager 1y ago
Looks nice. There's also this project with a very similar concept: https://playtoob.com https://playtoob.com I ended up creating my own solution, based on mitmproxy and a bit of JS that gets injected into each new page that loads. The end result looks like YouTube, but with guardrails that redirect toward the approved set of channels. Seeing another take on this idea inspired me to finally publish my code, in case anyone is interested in a DIY approach: https://github.com/scottyeager/newtube https://github.com/scottyeager/newtube
_blk 1y ago
Nice. Thanks for sharing. So far I'm less worried about the content my kids watch than the ads that get injected. Even "kids ads" are horrible (by my standards.) SmartTube on androidTV gets rid of those for me and NewPipe on the phone. NewPipe also keeps playing when you turn off the screen and lets you adjust speed.. It is the better Youtube.
- sam_goody 1y ago
  I don't know how they work, but have noticed that many general filters (eg, Netspark or Netfree) remove all ads from Youtube. Make the experience so much better for all videos, and entirely removes most of the obnoxious ones.
01jonny01 1y ago
Hey I created https://freetvz.com https://freetvz.com you just gave me a good idea. I have a "Create a TV channel" feature that allows you to enter youtube channel handles to create your own personalised TV channel. I am going to do this for my kids.
njitram 1y ago
this looks like youtube kids from youtube itself, what are the differences between the two? I use youtube kids for my own kids on our iPads, which works somewhat fine, a bit clunky to add channels and to use it for offline watching though.
- skinner927 1y ago
  I’m going to go out on a limb and assume OP is similar to all of my friends and missed the fact you can manually curate yt kids? Yt kids is also odd because you need to be signed in as the parent and the kids account isn’t its own independent account. Perhaps this solves the fatal flaw that your kid has to have your google account signed into their tablet to watch yt kids. I got my child their own tablet, created a child Google account, signed into the Android tablet with it, and then I was unable to restrict what they watched. Best I could do was the young child algorithm, but there’s still so much trash.
- beechwood 1y ago
  YouTube kids doesn't have the channels they watch. AFAIK the creator has to designate their videos as kid friendly. Not all creators do that.
deng 1y ago
This is nice. It's a disgrace that Youtube does not have the option to allow only certain channels for a kids' account, but of course it brings Google more money to trap kids in endless video garbage, so here we are. I made a similar setup for my kids, but simply locally using Freetube (https://freetubeapp.io/ https://freetubeapp.io/).
- skinner927 1y ago
  I can manually curate YouTube kids. There’s no suggestions outside the curated channels and auto play can be disabled. What’s the problem?
  - xrd 1y ago
    Can you share the process? I did not know this either.
    - smusamashah 1y ago
      When you setup YouTube kids app, it has an option to allow only the shared/whitelisted/curated content. Don't remember the exact terminology. Then from your main account, go to a channel, click three dots -> Share with children -> Share. Can do the same with a single video too. It can be a painful process though. If you want to unshare, you have to find that video and repeat the process. Or unshare it in the youtube kids android app by logging in as a parent first. Would have been nice if i could share a play list. That way I would only have to modify that play list to add/remove a video.
  - deng 1y ago
    Maybe things have improved with the YouTube Kids app. Previously, I was not able to manually chose channels that were fine to watch, and there was still a ton of trash there, although Google claims it is manually curated. The main problem is when children get older and YouTube Kids is simply not a good fit anymore (my children refer to it as "Baby Youtube"). The way I remember it, I would consider the content to be applicable for children up to maybe 6 or 7 years? Until that age, I did at least casually monitor what my children watched anyway and didn't just leave them alone with a tablet. The regular Youtube has a "content setting" for parents with categories like "9+" and "13+", but when I actually tried this, these categories were an absolute joke and still contained a ton of adult content, especially all the influencer gaming grifts, the right-wing "manosphere" bullshit, and so on. It is obvious that some AI does the filtering here, and we all know how well that works. How do you set up YouTube in a way that only an explicit list of channels can be watched, without the possibility to trivially circumvent this by simply opening a browser and going to youtube.com directly without being logged in? Freetube allows me to - set up a list of channels that are OK - disable the search box - set up a PIN so that the configuration cannot be changed. The installed browser is simply using a different filtered DNS and will not be able to connect to youtube.com directly. This also has the advantage that I don't even need a Google account for anything.
narendranag 1y ago
I use kidoodle.tv — all the kids content I want, for free, legally.
smusamashah 1y ago
On YouTube kids app you can do "Approved content only" such that only channels/videos allowed/shared by you will be visible. This will be the kids profile under your own account. Found the reddit thread that explains this process. https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/179fqem/how_the_heck_do_you_curate_kids_youtube_content/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/179fqem/how_the_... I have YouTube kids setup TV for my 3yo with videos from Vooks, Stella and Same, Guess How Much I love you etc. Also using Projectivity Launcher that has parental controls which means he can't just pick remote and launch the app whenever + an alarm clock app to limit watch time. It's an OK setup so far.
- beechwood 1y ago
  YouTube kids does not have Minecraft building channels, at least not ones that my kids watch. That's why I created this.
darkteflon 1y ago
I pull select channels for my kid into Plex using Pinchflat. Deleted the YT / YT Kids apps altogether. I don’t think there’s any way to “safely” expose your kid to the vagaries of the algorithm. This approach gives you total control over update frequency, how many back episodes to retain, etc.

41 points by beechwood 1y ago

This is not a fancy web app. I simply made it because I'm a single parent and while I'm trying to make dinner my 9 year old is down some YouTube rabbit hole. I figured I would share because I can't be the only parent that has this issue. So I made a web app where I could add channels that I approve. There is no algo recommendations in the side bar, just the video. Please share feedback if you have any.

nofalsescotsman 1y ago
So is the idea here, that you block access to the YouTube website directly, but allow watching through approved channels on https://maekitsafe.com https://maekitsafe.com? If so, I'd like to see some detailed instructions for users on how they can actively block YouTube.com while still allowing embed to play on your site. I think that may trip a lot of non-tech people up.
- beechwood 1y ago
  That is correct. I can add some detailed FAQ. Thank you for the feedback.

e-clinton 1y ago

Interesting idea, but I’d take it a step further. I want to control exactly what videos the kids can watch, not just the channel.

beechwood 1y ago
I added the ability to exclude shorts. Is it wrong to assume if the channel is ok, that all videos within the channel are ok?
derwiki 1y ago
yt-dlp + Plex
cookiengineer 1y ago
Minitube is pretty great, and uses MPV (and therefore yt-dlp) behind the scenes. It has filters that are really neat, and is very minimalistic. I personally use it, too, to avoid distracting myself and to actively search for everything I consume. [1] https://flavio.tordini.org/minitube https://flavio.tordini.org/minitube
- xrd 1y ago
  Does it have parental controls, or a way of at least seeing what the kids are watching? I can't tell from looking at that page.
  - beechwood 1y ago
    the idea is that you trust the channel that you add. so assuming every video on that channel is safe....

cdolan 1y ago

I was working on this myself! Also my family uses the name beechwood (its a street we grew up on). Is this an alternative universe? Love the implementation. I'd really like to block Youtube on my firewall but let it through via this tool with a proxy or something. Can I get this to load on the SmartTV, too?

beechwood 1y ago
I also grew up on Beechwood. Small world :)
- cdolan 1y ago
  In Pittsburgh, by chance??

scottyeager 1y ago

Looks nice. There's also this project with a very similar concept: https://playtoob.com https://playtoob.com I ended up creating my own solution, based on mitmproxy and a bit of JS that gets injected into each new page that loads. The end result looks like YouTube, but with guardrails that redirect toward the approved set of channels. Seeing another take on this idea inspired me to finally publish my code, in case anyone is interested in a DIY approach: https://github.com/scottyeager/newtube https://github.com/scottyeager/newtube

_blk 1y ago

Nice. Thanks for sharing. So far I'm less worried about the content my kids watch than the ads that get injected. Even "kids ads" are horrible (by my standards.) SmartTube on androidTV gets rid of those for me and NewPipe on the phone. NewPipe also keeps playing when you turn off the screen and lets you adjust speed.. It is the better Youtube.

sam_goody 1y ago
I don't know how they work, but have noticed that many general filters (eg, Netspark or Netfree) remove all ads from Youtube. Make the experience so much better for all videos, and entirely removes most of the obnoxious ones.

01jonny01 1y ago

Hey I created https://freetvz.com https://freetvz.com you just gave me a good idea. I have a "Create a TV channel" feature that allows you to enter youtube channel handles to create your own personalised TV channel. I am going to do this for my kids.

njitram 1y ago

this looks like youtube kids from youtube itself, what are the differences between the two? I use youtube kids for my own kids on our iPads, which works somewhat fine, a bit clunky to add channels and to use it for offline watching though.

skinner927 1y ago
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume OP is similar to all of my friends and missed the fact you can manually curate yt kids? Yt kids is also odd because you need to be signed in as the parent and the kids account isn’t its own independent account. Perhaps this solves the fatal flaw that your kid has to have your google account signed into their tablet to watch yt kids. I got my child their own tablet, created a child Google account, signed into the Android tablet with it, and then I was unable to restrict what they watched. Best I could do was the young child algorithm, but there’s still so much trash.
beechwood 1y ago
YouTube kids doesn't have the channels they watch. AFAIK the creator has to designate their videos as kid friendly. Not all creators do that.

deng 1y ago

This is nice. It's a disgrace that Youtube does not have the option to allow only certain channels for a kids' account, but of course it brings Google more money to trap kids in endless video garbage, so here we are. I made a similar setup for my kids, but simply locally using Freetube (https://freetubeapp.io/ https://freetubeapp.io/).

skinner927 1y ago
I can manually curate YouTube kids. There’s no suggestions outside the curated channels and auto play can be disabled. What’s the problem?
- xrd 1y ago
  Can you share the process? I did not know this either.
  - smusamashah 1y ago
    When you setup YouTube kids app, it has an option to allow only the shared/whitelisted/curated content. Don't remember the exact terminology. Then from your main account, go to a channel, click three dots -> Share with children -> Share. Can do the same with a single video too. It can be a painful process though. If you want to unshare, you have to find that video and repeat the process. Or unshare it in the youtube kids android app by logging in as a parent first. Would have been nice if i could share a play list. That way I would only have to modify that play list to add/remove a video.
- deng 1y ago
  Maybe things have improved with the YouTube Kids app. Previously, I was not able to manually chose channels that were fine to watch, and there was still a ton of trash there, although Google claims it is manually curated. The main problem is when children get older and YouTube Kids is simply not a good fit anymore (my children refer to it as "Baby Youtube"). The way I remember it, I would consider the content to be applicable for children up to maybe 6 or 7 years? Until that age, I did at least casually monitor what my children watched anyway and didn't just leave them alone with a tablet. The regular Youtube has a "content setting" for parents with categories like "9+" and "13+", but when I actually tried this, these categories were an absolute joke and still contained a ton of adult content, especially all the influencer gaming grifts, the right-wing "manosphere" bullshit, and so on. It is obvious that some AI does the filtering here, and we all know how well that works. How do you set up YouTube in a way that only an explicit list of channels can be watched, without the possibility to trivially circumvent this by simply opening a browser and going to youtube.com directly without being logged in? Freetube allows me to - set up a list of channels that are OK - disable the search box - set up a PIN so that the configuration cannot be changed. The installed browser is simply using a different filtered DNS and will not be able to connect to youtube.com directly. This also has the advantage that I don't even need a Google account for anything.

narendranag 1y ago

I use kidoodle.tv — all the kids content I want, for free, legally.

smusamashah 1y ago

On YouTube kids app you can do "Approved content only" such that only channels/videos allowed/shared by you will be visible. This will be the kids profile under your own account. Found the reddit thread that explains this process. https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/179fqem/how_the_heck_do_you_curate_kids_youtube_content/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Parenting/comments/179fqem/how_the_... I have YouTube kids setup TV for my 3yo with videos from Vooks, Stella and Same, Guess How Much I love you etc. Also using Projectivity Launcher that has parental controls which means he can't just pick remote and launch the app whenever + an alarm clock app to limit watch time. It's an OK setup so far.

beechwood 1y ago
YouTube kids does not have Minecraft building channels, at least not ones that my kids watch. That's why I created this.

darkteflon 1y ago

I pull select channels for my kid into Plex using Pinchflat. Deleted the YT / YT Kids apps altogether. I don’t think there’s any way to “safely” expose your kid to the vagaries of the algorithm. This approach gives you total control over update frequency, how many back episodes to retain, etc.