YouTube is trying to deal with complaints about content on its supposedly safe YouTube Kids channel.
YouTube launched its first dedicated “Kids” app not long ago, but already it’s having big problems with inappropriate content.
Now, the company is trying to fix it. The YouTube Kids app was meant to provide a safe place that parents would feel OK with as opposed to the Wild West of most online videos, according to a TechCrunch report.
Consumer watchdog groups blasted YouTube for being sloppy in its introduction of YouTube kids, arguing that tons of inappropriate content that included references to drugs, alcohol, and sex were slipping through the cracks.
YouTube has responded to those complaints by introducing an update that will hopefully help deal with the problem. The update will allow parents to more thoroughly restrict what kind of content can be accessed, and it will get support from Chromecast and Apple TV. Hopefully, it will be available in just a few weeks.
YouTube can be a great place for kids to check out educational videos or watch music videos and web series, but there is also a lot of content that is wildly inappropriate for them. Until now, there hasn’t been much parents can do about that except approve every single video, or just not supervise it at all and hope for the best. But now, finally, YouTube hopes that even though its launch of YouTube Kids isn’t perfect, it will eventually become a useful function for concerned parents who want to make the Internet more kid-friendly.
The problem is finding an effective way to filter this content. As TechCrunch noted, a child could search for Elmo and end up on a parody video featuring him cursing. There’s also a video online of Barney the Dinosaur with a highly not-kid-friendly Tupac song dubbed over top of him dancing with kids.
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