The problem is strict controls is not helpful. My kids teachers often assign homework which is watch some YouTube video - which means I have to give my kids access to all of YouTube including channels i don't approve of. In turn i have to stare at my kids screen - a very creepy move - instead of working on whatever my own project is when they are doing homework.
I constantly find something as a parent where I can block way too much, or nothing at all. There is no middle ground. Mind you a middle ground for something the size of YouTube is probably impossible just because of the quantity of things there that I might or might not want my kids to see - but the current situation is not working.
When my kids got to an age they started asking for YouTube videos, I found it entirely frustrating that Youtube Kids was just not feasible to setup like you describe. It was a choice between 3 things, everything, the "kids" section whatever that meant for YouTube, and just tell them sorry, not happening. Within the kids section there seemed to be some controls to help, but I found they did not work well at all and I could easily watch anything in the expanded kids section. I'd have been happy with a whitelist for channels.
The existing parental control features are deliberately mis-designed, because there's a lot of money at stake and Meta / Google aren't stupid.
Does anyone really think they didn't run uptake and engagement impact tests on various proposed parental control options... and then ship the one that impacted their revenue least?
The only reason there are controls, in any sense, is as a fig leaf when the lawsuits inevitably started flying (read: now), so they can say 'See, we take this very seriously...'
Thanks, that’s the type of details I was looking for, as I’m not a parent myself. That does sound like a bad situation, indeed. Though it’s also a bit strange that watching a YouTube video is a homework. I would have assumed that schools have their own platform
Yep. All I want is allow/deny permissions on particular channels. For my little guy I'd set up a blanket Deny rule, with a few channels allowed; for older kids parents might want to go the other way.
All of the "parent better" messages are useless (not to mention out of touch) when technical tools to do so are not made avaliable to us. And, of course, those tools are not given because YouTube wants to drop kids into the endless algorithmic feed of slop. The age verification laws are stupid, and will nowhere address the actual problem. YouTube (and the like) - not parents - will still have full control.
It’s useless as a blanket statement, but not if you go in specifics. With enough public pressure targeted specifically at YouTube it’s completely possible they would add more controls, and is more reasonable than a complete ban of social platforms
I understand what you mean, but I do not, at this point, think "public pressure" is sufficient. I once did, but that was before ad companies (and they're all ad companies, at their root) unlocked the full potential (if they even have) of data-mining and algorithmic targeting. They know us better than we know ourselves, and make too much money hijacking our dopamine systems to respond to anything we say we want. Legislation is the only thing that will reign them in.
I'm not saying that social media can't be good, or shouldn't exist, or shouldn't be able to make money. Early-YouTube and early-Facebook and early-Twitter (and their fallen predecessors) were good communicative platforms. I used them, and by-and-large thought they made my life, and society at large, better.
It's the data-mining and algorithmic targeting / feeds that need to be regulated.
I constantly find something as a parent where I can block way too much, or nothing at all. There is no middle ground. Mind you a middle ground for something the size of YouTube is probably impossible just because of the quantity of things there that I might or might not want my kids to see - but the current situation is not working.