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YouTube’s Deliberate Indifference Exposes Kids to disgusting Content (www.youtube.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 1 points 55 minutes ago

YouTube "algorithms" are nonsense. I watch one deep dive into the fallout games and despite the fact that I have, and continue to watch British TV shows it's relentless in showing me deep dives into "fallout lore". What I've chosen is like 3% of what I usually watch. It's not a very popular genre in comparison to, oh, the fucking BBC. Still, it's all of the sudden its the only thing that gets suggested.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Seeing TADC in the thumbnail and the "stock footage with scaryvoice" shockumentary intro immediately put me off this video (plus a link to another video from the same person with the same thumbnail but with Minecraft characters; seems like a good racket). So, my two cents:

🪙: The Amazing Digital Circus is a pretty-brilliant psychological horror adult animation. It shouldn't be recommended to little kids, for sure, but it's not "disgusting content."

🪙🪙: There is definitely a problem with the stuff being recommended to kids on YouTube. Google has no real incentive to fix it, of course, but leaving a kid to watch YouTube at random long enough to wander into the really weird shit is kind of on the parents. It's a video service that cares only about serving ads, not a babysitter; either adjust your expectations or stop complaining.

There are plenty of services for only a few dollars a month that are actively safe for kids. Quick DDG found this (and I'm a little dubious about them including the big players like Netflix and Prime, but they also list stuff that looks better): https://thestreamable.com/video-streaming/best-streaming-service-for-kids

Anyway, here's a much better video courtesy of Dan Olson about the weird stuff on YouTube aimed at kids: https://youtu.be/LKp2gikIkD8 (and its only 15 minutes long)

[-] [email protected] 13 points 3 hours ago

Stop begging for censorship. That never ends up good. Accurate tagging of media is what we need and a way to filter that ourselves.

[-] [email protected] 26 points 19 hours ago

YouTube’s Deliberate Indifference Exposes Anyone to disgusting Content

FTFY

[-] [email protected] 25 points 20 hours ago

Parents: don’t let your babies on the Interwebs.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

That's easy. What about when they get older?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Talk to them honestly without pandering about how to be discerning about what they watch?

Find things to watch with them that are genuinely enjoyable for you both?

Make sure you always interact with them in an open, accepting, genuinely-involved way so that they tell you what they've been watching and respect your opinions on those things?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Then you have to set up parenting filters. Firewalls, content filters, read logs, etc.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I wish there was a way to filter youtube. I can block it completely on my firewall, but how do I let my kids watch their piano lesson without getting sucked into something they shouldn't see?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

You either watch it with them, download it for them to play offline (try ClipGrab, its free) or they don't watch it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

When they are older I guess you can beg big brother and nanny state to hold their hand.

[-] [email protected] 37 points 23 hours ago

That's why I've blocked YouTube on all my kids devices. It's just a pipeline of pure garbage content for kids.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 22 hours ago

There can absolutely be educational content for kids on YT, but compared to the egregious amount of mind-numbing/fetishy content, it's totally not worth it. It's a shame how there feels like a lack/decline of quality kids/tween TV shows being broadcasted, I was talking to my mom about how kids really don't have a lot to watch once they hit age 9+.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Edit: Missed that you were talking about educational content, so this is more about entertainment, though quite a few of the shows in the linked post touch on social lessons that are, in my opinion at least, also important for kids to learn. Acceptance, open-mindedness, self-expression, that sort of thing.

There's a post I ran across a while back that might be what you're looking for: https://lemmy.world/post/30235633

There are a lot of good shows for kids that age (and the adults watching along with them), they just tend to not be all that well known. There are also a decent number of older cartoons not in that list that are kid-friendly while being just genuinely good art; off the top of my head:

  • Samurai Jack
  • Invader Zim (if you're ok with its particular style of weirdness, parent discretion advised)
  • Courage The Cowardly Dog (also weird, but not as weird as Zim)

Because I'm slightly an animation dork, I'd also personally include Batman The Animated Series and Batman Beyond. Mostly just standard-but-high-quality action cartoons, but both occasionally did some really impressive artistic stuff, especially TAS.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

I totally agree with the lists mentioned in that post, as my sister and I watched a good amount of them. But like my post said, there's a decline in good TV shows for kids. All of those shows mentioned are finished, none of them are currently ongoing shows right? Do they still broadcast them? Now parents have to pay for Disney+ to have something that isn't slop for their kids to watch.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Honestly, I haven't followed the state of Western animation much the last few years, so I can believe that there are fewer good shows than there used to be.

That said, animation is extremely expensive to produce for the amount of media it creates. Combine that with creative writing (well, art in general) being very under-appreciated, and therefore poorly-paid-for, there are a lot of societal/business pressures working against shows like this being produced. I only bring that up because people being unwilling to pay for non-slop is a big contributor to the problem.

(Not to defend Disney or the other mega-corps nickel-and-diming us for shareholder profits, of course. If only these companies would use their billions to fund shows from enthusiastic new creators rather than dumping everything into forgettable live-action remakes and CEO bonuses >_>)

[-] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago

In the time I allowed my kids to have YT kids, I did not encounter the content you speak of. I know there's good content on YouTube, I watch it all the time. But I never saw anything good come up in the YouTube kids app. And we had it for a while.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago

Well I'm mostly thinking about how my teachers would make us watch a YT vid with a classwork/homework assignment. CrashCourse does like every subject, I watched several of their Civics & Government/History videos. Amoeba Sisters was a frequent channel in my Biology class.

But the whole point is you have to look for those, cause YT knows they can get way more kids to scroll and watch ads for 5 hrs+ if you show them "ElSa pOoPiNg oN SpIDeRmAn!1!1?!?1?" videos compared to “Learn about how carbon affects the pH of seawater!". The algorithm is designed to trap unfortunately, and YT kids is a fucking sham.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago

Yeah I mean if a parent was always curing the content, it could be useful. But to me that's the same as not letting them have it, you just put on some YouTube videos every so often for them that you choose on your device (we do this now, I just don't allow it on their devices).

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

How do I has a parent curate content? I have not found anything that lets me allows the good. Either I block youtube completely, or I get what google decides is good for my kids (which blocks things I find good while allowing the bad)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Exactly. The only way is to block it and then choose something on your device whenever you want to show them something, and never let them use it without you choosing the content. The algorithm will always lead them to the darkest bowels of garbage content in my experience.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

Make a new account and see what the suggestions turn into.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago

Honestly their algorithm seems to mostly push low quality, South Asian, and/or AI generated content lately, when randomly playing off of something like Ms Rachel or Sesame Street. Nothing disgusting, although maybe a little trippy (in AI case). My daughter really digs the Bollywood inspired kids stuff though.

this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
177 points (91.9% liked)

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