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Kagi for Kids

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198 pointsryanjamurphy166 comments

What Kagi or anyone could work on, is an actually working version of YouTube Kids.

I literally Pi-Hole Blocked all of YouTube after my son started reading the Bible after a Minecraft Influencer started preaching throughout most of his videos to the point my son became a bit too much interested in the topic.

Not that I'm a rabid atheist or would deny my child such a thing, but if THAT can enter my 8yr olds brain via his short allowed time where he can browse by himself, i'm worried what else is coming his way through it.

I'd love to give him access to valuable videos between rules I describe by natural language and can test myself, but nothing like this exists.

May I ask how are you dealing with the hole Youtube left in his life? I grew up on the internet, but seeing the effects it had on me and the world I don't want the same for my kids. The problem is I don't even know what to do in my own free time if not browsing Youtube or playing games, imagine a kid.

My advice would be hobbies. Learning and practicing stuff can take a lot of your free time if you’re passionate about it, meaning you give it your full attention.

Maybe I'm weird, but hobbies just feel like work anyways, except maybe reading. Learning Japanese just doesn't have the same feedback loop as grinding Dota or something... Alas, how would I tackle this issue with a kid? Maybe just throw a bunch of activities at him and see what sticks as a hobby?

Yeah that works. I've done piano, jujitsu, hockey, and half a dozen other things with my kid. If they ask to do something I let them, but make them do a commitment. If they hate it, they can stop when the season is over and try something else. The tricky part is to balance ensuring they learn not to quit just because something is hard, with not making them do something for too long that they've just figured out is not for them. Piano and gymnastics were a big no, while they fell in love with the right jujitsu gym.

Not everything has to be competitive or official either. Like you can just go to the community pool during the summer without joining a swim team. I think some parents forget this, but this was normal for previous generations.

So my kid has a few extra curricular activities and then I also do plenty of activities with them at the house like play chess or card games or whatever. They're also watching some of my old favorite sci-fi shows with me. Nearly all of YouTube kids is steaming garbage designed to turn your kid into a mindless consumer. Netflix kids is pretty good though. There are a lot of shows that have character progression and multi season plot arcs that cover complex subjects. Avatar the Last Airbender is an example of a show I was comfortable with my 7 year old watching without worrying about brain rot. Mind you, I think all screen time needs a limit.

That’s a great, nuanced view! Thanks for sharing!

No problem! We're all on this journey together as parents. It isn't easy.

The way I look at it though is that spending a lot of time with your kids early on to build a strong relationship and work on any behavioral or other issues will ensure you will set them up better for success in life. I see a lot of kids being raised by tablets and can't help but predict that the parents are going to regret it later down the road. Sorry if I got a little off topic there.

> Alas, how would I tackle this issue with a kid?

by teaching them that work is good and necessary. There's a book by Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death, the central idea of which is that "form excludes content". The problem with Youtube, or in his time TV, isn't just the content, it's that all content by the nature of the medium must be entertaining. If it isn't entertaining, it isn't content.

Hobbies feel like work because they are like work, because most things worth doing have a component of work to them. Rather than just trying to see what sticks, the best thing you can teach kids these days is that they should stick to the thing and that expecting "fun" at all times is a bad expectation to have.

Also there's a period when you're going to feel terrible if you're focusing too much on the result, when you know enough to judge the quality, but not practiced enough to do it well. That's when positive feedback is important, either by reducing expectations (just doing it for fun), focusing on relative progress instead of absolute qualifications, and mental care. A social element works wonder for these.

But sometimes you're just tired, right? I get working on a hobby project on the weekends, but I can't fathom working on anything after a 10-12 hour workday

Let him be bored, and provide the tools so that he learns how to make his own fun.

PBS and whatever equivalent there is in your country.

There is a metric ton of professionally made non-commercial content for kids.

Why not curate a video repository? I think novelty is actually overrated and even harmful for kid. Deeper exploration on familiar subject may be beneficial as that would let his/her imagination to take on the job of inventing new things.

This seems like a cool idea. Maybe using something like a Peertube instance to join like-minded parents would end up working out for scaling

I did this. I set up a plex server in my home that connects to a NAS which has the full runs of every PBS style kids show that I could find and found good reviews of. Along with classic movies.

Just trying to recreate the media conditions of my youth, with modern content as well as long as it’s “pure”.

I’m also putting me-vetted YouTube content like Kurzgesagt on it.

You might want to vet your video collection more closely. Kurzgesagt got into hot water a few years ago after it came out that they were being sponsored by large corporations to push messaging that used those sponsors' publications as primary sources. They're not as unpartial and objective as they lead people to believe

Care to share the source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzgesagt#Sources_of_funding

https://www.reddit.com/r/kurzgesagt/comments/10jlyyk/kurzges...

They're not as partial and biased as people like to believe.

When you read kurzgesagt's reasoned response, and you consider the motivations of the primary accuser, it's a lot less dramatic than you make it sound. Nobody's perfect; and sometimes organisations' messaging align without it being bought. They are not primarily funded by billionaires, they have editorial independence enforced by contract, and have a lot to lose if that's not the case. Of course, make up your own mind (as kurzgesagt would like you to do); but I'll still be watching their work. If in doubt, check with other sources afterwards! (Like you should anyway).

Trying to look into this now, and can't seem to find the issue. Is the complaint that they used Our World in Data [0] while they got money from the Gates Foundation? If so, I don't understand what the problem is; it seems to me as objective a source as can be. Or is there something more shady there that I haven't found?

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/

If it's hard enough to notice that you need someone on HN to point it out to you, it's probably fine.

Another great resource for vetting content for kids by age is Common Sense Media.

I’m in the same boat. Curated is the only way to go.

Jellyfin + ytdlp + playlists = pretty good, in general. and avoids ads; the ads are worse than almost anything else you can find.

Do you have any automation on ytdlp and Jellyfin?

I built this with Jellyfin and Home Assistant for my kids: https://github.com/philips/homeassistant-nfc-chromecast

Two options: Pinchflat (recommended) and TubeSync.

Pinchflat looks perfect. Thank you.

If it’s just the ads that are the issue, paying for YouTube premium would be a similar cost solution, and funnel some money to good creators.

Towards a better Jellyfin solution, I wonder if adding Whisper and an LLM model could transcribe the YT videos and flag any which contains themes that go against parents values.

No need for manual ytdlp! I use TubeArchivist[1] to download channels and then share them with kid's account on Plex. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Great self-hosted solution.

[1] https://www.tubearchivist.com/

I had a lot of frustrations with the Youtube Kids app until I realized that if, when setting it up, rather than choosing the appropriate age range, you picked the "custom" (or whatever it was, it was annoyingly hidden all the way to the right, so you can't even see it at first), you are able to white list channels and videos, rather than just blacklist. Why this feature is hidden behind a different age selector rather than being part of any of the age settings I do not understand, but it's a lot better, and it could prevent the issue you describe, although admittedly it does require more work on the parents part to find and approve appropriate content. This is easier for younger kids at least.

wait is this real? this is a thing ive been wanting, some channels that are fine are not in ytkids and some of the stuff in ytkids is just junk if we could curate a whitelist that would be perfect

I think you can only whitelist channels that are approved kids channels, not from the full youtube library, but it does allow you to avoid the ocean of crap and pick just the good stuff.

You can actually share any channel!

It is a very hidden feature though. You have to link your kids account to yours, and then in the Youtube mobile app (not on the web), you can click the three dots button and then share > "with kids"

So that way you can build up a whitelist of channels that they can see in the YT kids account.

Perfect only if you have a small list that is allowed...

Yes, it is real, but a bit tricky to setup with caveats: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

I wrote a blog post about that if it helps others. It is a real game changer: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

Is there a list somewhere to start a whitelist from?

Now only if they added parental controls for the standard Youtube app to block Shorts completely.

My kids aren't allowed to use TikTok and now Google decided to shove it in Youtube - and make it impossible to block.

As a fellow parent and hater of YouTube Kids, I've thought about building a replacement.

What holds me back is knowing that -- if this was an iPad app, for example -- I'd be at the mercy of both Google AND Apple. It's a minefield of sensitive topics:

- Kids & privacy

- Content moderation

- Intellectual property

- Third-party UGC

Way too risky.

This is why iPlayer is worth its weight in gold in the UK.

I found that most of the content on YouTube kids existed as a means to advertise products. I don't necessarily care to understand the economics of it because it just doesn't provide enough value to bother.

What I do understand is that I don't want my kids being tricked into watching ads because something about watching adults open toys is entertaining.

Kids have many people they can ask for gifts from.

I think DudePerfect have an app that is essentially this. Heavily curated kid friendly content. It might only be paid though.

Yup - our kids use it and it’s the only “YouTube” kinda thing that’s worked for our family.

I had a look, and it seemed to be just their content? I thought the GP meant an app with a range of content.

They have their stuff and, I’m not sure how to word it, but like affiliated channels or other channels within their “network” - such Ryan Trayhan (my spelling is off there)

Church-goer son-of-a-pastor die-hard-reformed christian here in agreement...

sorry there are too many whackos out there. I'd feel more comfortable with my kids learning from Catholic Priests than some random youtuber. In fact, my kids are probably going to go to catholic school.

The reason why we have denominations in part is to maintain the education of the clergy and keep dogma, or theology, in check.

(even if we disagree at times, at least most of the organized christian church can agree on the basic creeds - something that youtube seems hell bent on for clicks is getting you into nontrinitarian and whacky stuff!)

What is wrong with YouTube Kids? I think it works fairly well and use it in my own home: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

To add to this, YouTube Kids is an entirely different beast altogether depending on if it’s on a touch screen your kid can control, vs on a TV where you have the remote.

I feel a lot of people talk terribly about YouTube Kids because they’re imagining you just hand them a tablet with the app, let them pick what they want to watch, and walk away. And then the kid finds some super suspect videos and gets brainwashed or something.

But here I am letting my 2 and 4 year olds watch Miss Rachel and Super Simple Songs and Big Block Singsong and the occasional Elmo’s World on the TV, while I’m in the room, and people on this forum would call me a monster for doing this… it’s really wild.

This is not a new development; HN has been discussing this issue since it became apparent that the content did not meet the expected standards. The situation changed when Google made an effort to implement a whitelist channel feature.

I stumbled on this some time ago and saved it for when my kid grows up enough. It is a collection of a few thousands kid friendly videos. I think their curation is pretty good, but check it out for yourself.

https://thekidshouldseethis.com/

What did these videos say? I'd like to let the leaders of our church know, so they can add it to the sermons.

For my 3yo, I have setup YouTube kids but with only approved content. He gets to see only selected channels or videos. YouTube with search enabled for kids isn't as walled as one might expect.

My son watches this YouTuber, it's Eystreem. My guess is that he uses the Bible as a prop to add drama to his videos. Another video he was marketing Prime energy drinks. Maybe I should download a whole bunch of 80's TV shows line A-team or Macyver, and only have that available to watch

Shocking at this may seem, it is your job as a parent to protect your kid and not expect a platform to do it for you. It's not that hard to limit kids' screen time and control the content. A simple yt-dlp cron job with Jellyfin would work fine.

thats not a real filterable example

> to ensure children are not exposed to harmful content.

Strong claim. I like the idea, but wish they were more realistic about what they can provide. If you ever get a Reddit result you're likely one click away from harmful content.

That said, I like the lenses applied in this case. It may be the best we can get today in terms of search filtering.

Kagi lets you block results for various sites you don’t like, if sites like Reddit are of concern.

I get it, but that wasn't the point. There's lots of sites which will have your result and harmful content right next to each other. Reddit is known for being a collection of very unrelated subreddits, but you won't know every site like that. Kagi writes "ensures", but they can't really ensure anything here. They'll have the best guess of the first click being safe and even that is often problematic (what kind of safe?, for what age?).

Or they head to Wikipedia, search for "fish" and end up on the Albert Fish page.

I think aiming for better rather than perfect is the best option, as you said. As long as it's framed in this way, and not as an ideal option to let your impressionable child loose on the internet.

Kagi seems like a cool company - I'm not a customer yet. I'd like there to be technology companies I can trust - perhaps like Kagi.

I have been really happy with NextDNS though. My kids, not so much. But hey ... that's parenting.

Kagi and NextDNS are the two subscriptions I have that I couldn't live without, you should give Kagi a go.

I've moved from NextDNS to ControlD. NextDNS seems like it's been abandoned--good luck getting any level of support--and I've been really happy with the feature set of ControlD.

Any features or capabilities in particular from ControlD that you find most useful?

I read this as "Kaggle for Kids" which also seems like a lovely idea.

Seconded

Disclaimer: I am a happy paid Kagi subscriber and absolutely am an advocate of their product. I really hope the company makes it work financially because we NEED something like it.

I have two young kids of my own (4, almost 2) and have so far been able to avoid the issues of letting them free roam on the net, but it's obviously something that's coming. This was not something I ever paid attention to in my youth but now as a parent the open internet completely terrifies me. And I say that as a core millennial that basically grew up with the internet.

The current status quo of "kids friendly" content (eg YouTube Kids) is mostly awful. I would still never let my young kids browse something like that without supervision.

I am appreciative that Kagi knows this is an issue and is investing into the area.

Feels like in my youth the biggest risk was stumbling on some freaky gore/porn that scarred you, but somehow that doesn't seem as bad as the risk of getting hooked on dopamine-optimized brainrot, alt-right propaganda, or micro transaction focused games.

This. I was a kid with too much free time and exposed to the internet with some but not enough supervision.

I stumbled with some f up stuff that i still remember to this day. But somehow I'm grateful that it wasn't the current brainrot

Yep, that's exactly my fear. The brain rot zombification of our society. How do I stop my kids from getting suckered into an endless scrolling doom loop?

> How do I stop my kids from getting suckered into an endless scrolling doom loop?

I think the first and best way to ensure this is to not do it yourself.

Pretty much every parent I know does not allow their preteens and younger unsupervised tablet/phone use because the internet is so bad for them at that age. Typically they allow a curated set of content during specific times, and devices are physically removed from the children's environment afterward.

I couldn't agree more, this pretty much describes me in my youth. I am legitimately terrified of what would have happened to me had I had access to some/certain alt-right influencers, I know for a fact that a younger me would have easily fallen into that mess. I get why it's appealing (at least to a certain person in a certain headspace).

I'm so glad the worst I feel like I ran into were freaky gore/porn.

I love Kagi and I think the basic ideas here are a step in the right direction. I would really like to see the curation be social so I can share and collaborate with friends and my kids school. As it is I help my kid use an EOL Chromebook to find Origami designs but it is always side-by-side and I have tight NextDNS controls to keep weird weird ads away from my kids.

On this topic I have been drafting and collecting thoughts on internet and digital media curation the last few nights. Here is what I have so far:

Thesis: The role of children's teachers and caretakers in curating an environment for children to learn and grow is more important than ever with the overwhelming variety of books, videos, shows, etc all of varying quality and alignment with caretaker and child interests. However, curation in the digital age is also more difficult than ever. The web is a collection of walled gardens which give parents limited and inconsistent controls over what the child will see once inside the walled garden. And, adding controls on-top of a walled garden is impossible or only possible by very computer savvy users (e.g. YouTube frontends).

What are ways care takers can practically and easily curate today?

Examples

- YouTube Kids: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

- Jellyfin or Calibre for ebooks

- Open WebUI with a custom system prompt for kids

Counter Examples

- Netflix, Disney, Amazon, etc: difficult to non-existent curation controls - all or nothing

- Kindle Kids: there are controls but for Library books the process is 12+ clicks between the Libby and Kindle app: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/can-you-share-kindl...

"Our young students are just beginning to develop their powers of discernment. By curating a good library collection, we can help them learn to weigh the merits of a few authoritative works on a subject rather than plowing through hundreds of internet sources of uneven quality. And while a computer search is undeniably efficient, we firmly believe that browsing a shelf of books is more rewarding and more educational. It deepens students' understanding of organizational principles, brings them unexpected discoveries, and rewards patient exploration rather than offering instant gratification"

Ok this is excellent. If I can trust Kagi for kids, I would pay through the nose for this.

The internet is wildly useful but it's just filled with so much trash and thanks to google going horribly terribly south, search doesn't work anymore.

Which means kids are no longer able to actually have the joy of surfing the web and finding very interesting things to read.

So the main question that I have is, is there a guarantee that bad sites will not show up here?

>So the main question that I have is, is there a guarantee that bad sites will not show up here?

Given that everyone has different definitions of "bad" and that someone malicious can put bad stuff on "good" sites, no.

> Given that everyone has different definitions of "bad" and that someone malicious can put bad stuff on "good" sites, no.

Kagi allowing you to assign what is good and bad makes your argument void.

> So the main question that I have is, is there a guarantee that bad sites will not show up here?

You shouldn't rely on the company alone. While it may be what Kagi is aiming for but they can only do so much.

If you're concerned for your kids you too should always double check if the content is good/bad regularly.

>"That's what Kagi is aiming for but they can only do so much."

Not sure why my argument is void, but you restating my exact point with different words is valid?

Are you expecting a company to manage it completely without human intervention, yourself without verifying the results?

If so, you then got to expect what Kagi decides what is bad and what is good and accept that's it.

It could be bias it could be not. I like to think they know but I personally would never put all my eggs in one basket.

>Are you expecting a company to manage it completely without human intervention, yourself without verifying the results?

What?

Parent commenter asked if it was guaranteed to block the bad stuff. I answered no. That's the entire conversation summarized.

Then you came in, said I was wrong, and then answered the question with "no", just like I did.

I didn't say anything about my expectations, or what I would do, or how I do it.

Maybe I am misunderstanding? What is the bad stuff, you want blocked?

OP comment comes off as "I want Kagi to do it for me and to be how I want it" when Kagi doesn't know what you want blocked. How can it? If Kagi is to support blocking why wouldn't they?

I am saying what Kagi wants to block may not be the bad stuff you want blocked and so you should then verify the content of what is blocked.

>Maybe I am misunderstanding.

I think you are...

The only thing I've said in this comment chain is that Kagi cannot guarantee that bad stuff won't show up. Which you seem to agree with (despite saying my argument is void, for some reason, before agreeing with it).

The rest has been you having a conversation with... I'm not sure who. Because you're asking a bunch of questions as if I am using this feature. I am not using this feature. Literally the only point I am making is that Kagi cannot guarantee that bad things wont show up.

And no one can guarantee you won't end up dead tomorrow morning.

Your argument is moot in that sense. Just because it's good today doesn't mean it won't be bad tomorrow. If Kagi is putting best efforts to guarantee that today it's safe that's better than nothing, no? And which to me is kore worthy than not.

If this is some elaborate troll or April Fools to confuse me, you've succeeded. I have no idea what you're going on about.

> Family Plan … We strive to provide a search engine that prioritizes the well-being of your loved ones, particularly the most vulnerable ones like children, by offering an ad-free and safe browsing experience. We offer two different group plans based on your specific needs.

I read it a few times and saw only one plan. What’s the second one? If it’s the Team plan, that seems like poor copy.

(Kagi Ultimate subscriber here)

Duo, perhaps?

I'm not exactly certain but under the family tab there are two options: Duo and Family

Lol...i see why kids are shunning "online"... The internet was exciting as a kid (for me) back in the nineties specifically because it was the wild west: unique takes, mp3s, software torrents, private p2p chats with strangers around the world, porn, and most importantly...something my parents had no clue about.

In 2025, id definately prefer kicking dirt as a kid.

As a parent of kids in 2025, there are approximately zero kids out there who share your view.

However, they're all subscribed to SkibidiDirtKickerz on Tiktok, YouTube and Snapchat. Don't forget to smash that like button!

Im very aware of the commercialisation of the internet. Sadly its something (tablets) given to children as a high tech dummy, more than it is a wierd and wonderful playground.

Is it easy to disable the Quick Answer "feature"?

It show up when you put a "?" at the end of your query.

I couldn't find that either. But did find myself laughing at the "always check this with an adult" disclaimer on the quick answers. It's nice to imagine an alternate world where being an adult is sufficient for proper critical thinking.

The first image in this section shows it is a switch at the bottom of the Parental Controls settings: https://staticmedia.kagi.com/family/parental.png

Wow, it’s be really great to block both CNN and Fox from parents searches. Maybe Facebook and TikTok too.

As a person of the age of majority, I would always choose the poop avatar over something as basic as ball or duck.

> Story behind the Poop Avatar

I love it

Amazon Kids+ is a competitive option for a closed, moderated ecosystem for younger age groups.

Lmao the longest section of this is about the Poop Avatar

Speaks volumes about how they see their clientele

Content for kids strikes me as something you'd curate around an experience and value system you sell to parents. I can't imagine anything else would work very well.

Granted, this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to build filters. I'm just rather pessimistic about a hands-off experience with such software.

I think curation is the key. I sort of trust Disney to curate content for my kids. I definitely do not trust Youtube to do it.

I don't want my kids to be able to "discover" content. Why is that always the feature? Rhetorical question....I know the answer, engagement and stickiness. I just don't like the answer.

When I was a kid on 56k myself, the consensus was that their internet usage was monitored by adult eyes. Did curated libraries or content filtering step up to the mark?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com