On similar note, schools should not send kids to Youtube to complete their assignments.
With YouTube the answer is moderation and it has to be taught by parents, by education institutions and so on. This is also valid for grown ups. One can look for information on YouTube but veer onto temptation's path and sink a lot of time that gets taken from something else. But a bit of meandering into wherever it takes us and in moderation is great for discovering new things.
YouTube is the most convenient solution to upload because of he simplicity of uploading since it is integrated into pretty much every hardware device.
This idea that parents now need to be moderating YouTube is asnine. Most are struggling to simply help their kids do their math homework and now we are going to require them to moderate google??
Right now the tech companies have more information on what my kids are viewing than me, unless we want a world where parents are literally approving every single thing that reaches their eyeballs, let's hold the platforms a accountable for what they are serving up.
Beyond a basic rating system with parental controls, the algorithm does not care if the videos are inappropriate for children. Given enough time with a child, the algorithm will lead them down a rabbit hole where they eventually reach strange videos portraying their favorite fictional characters in vaguely sexualized situations, or videos containing anti-science propaganda and/or promotion of harmful conspiracy theories.
Allowing young children to use YouTube unsupervised is demonstrably a bad idea.
Try explaining what you just explained to the average parent.
You are also qualifying "Young" "children". Doesn't the definition of children mean young human, so what are you communicating here?
in the real world, we have this thing where a teacher can upload an education video using two clicks of an iPhone and as you said, this uncorks pandora's box of goodies for kids.
>Given enough time with a child, the algorithm will lead them down a rabbit hole where they eventually reach strange videos portraying their favorite fictional characters in vaguely sexualized situations, or videos containing anti-science propaganda and/or promotion of harmful conspiracy theories.
What a fantastic addition to human society! Let's leave it to the parents to sort this shit out.
Before kids get to their assigned video they have to often watch an ad for a game or a service. Sometimes multiple ads play throughout.
Also, at the end of the video kids get enticed to watch more videos that Youtube wants them to see (not the teacher or parent) - in order to play more ads.
Expecting students to waste time sitting through Google ads and tracking at school is insane to me.
My seven year old has Youtube blocked on the computer he uses, we saw too many rabbit holes so that was that.
He wants content, he comes to me, I youtube-dl it, he has VLC
Given the insistence on being "a platform not a publisher", isn't that a bit like claiming that "content written on paper is a good resource for learning"?
How about quality vs. quantity?
If you wanted to recommend a video platform with video content where all of it is suitable for under-18s would you really pick YouTube?
(Full disclosure: I have three under-18 kids)
I wouldn't pick YouTube. It's about signal-to-noise.
Just an aside: a random video of some random person unwrapping something random that happens to be fascinating to small kids ... keeping them glued to the screen, and quiet... is not good content
For example, perhaps you are using Khan Academy with your kids. Then you augment it with one other lecture series. You're not going to augment that with yet another lecture series on the same subject, are you?
Kids don't need access to the whole cultural tapestry that is YT, they only need guidance as to the highest quality resources.
Could even feature some YouTube content that's vetted by teachers, re-uploaded and properly monetized of course. Uploads being ultimately restricted to teachers holding credentials and peer-moderated.