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Comment by s3r3nity | Hacker News Reader

> I used to let my kid watch YTKids while I supervised.

I think this is where you lose me - why is allowing a child access to have un-tethered access to a content portal appropriate? i.e. why is the responsibility on the content portal (YouTube) and not the parent or supervisor?

I might be a tad too much on the individual responsibility side of the spectrum here, but just like the old argument from the 90's ("The TV ain't a replacement for a babysitter...") I'm not sure the responsibility necessarily needs to be on the platform here over the parent/supervisor.

One suggestion: You can create a white-list or playlist of pre-approved content creators and/or videos, and offer access that way.

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It’s easier and more fool proof to just not use it. That’s the point - their service isn’t working and it’s better for many parents to just tune it out.

That’s parenting - avoid the shitty services that can’t put out a good product so you can focus your effort on something more meaningful. Or YouTube can fix the problem and it will be allowed in my household.

We generally trust that every page of a kids book will be roughly as expected given the title and author of the book. We trust the same of things like PBS kids programs.

The same trust cannot be extended to YouTube.

The TV can't replace a babysitter, but it's still reasonable to expect content labeled for kids to be filtered.

If YT can't and won't do it, they shouldn't label it as kids content. They have a separate product/brand for it, so it should be what it claims to be.

And the expectation is absolutely there because the YouTube Kids app is filtered but does a terrible job of it.

>why is the responsibility on the content portal (YouTube) and not the parent or supervisor?

because given how easy it is to access content on the user side there's no other way to do it feasibly. You can take the tv remote away from your kids, and that only turns the TV off. Tablets, pcs and so on are general-purpose computers with plenty of workarounds, it's extremely hard practically to stop kids from accessing content that they can technically access without greatly diminishing the value of the device or service.

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