A US authorities committee has described YouTube youngsters as a “wasteland of vapid, consumerist content”.
In a letter to YouTube leader Susan Wojcicki, the USA sub-committee on monetary and patron coverage stated the platform become full of “beside the point… quite business content material”.
Google released YouTube kids in 2015 as a secure area for youngsters to view appropriate content.
YouTube said it had worked hard to provide “enriching content for kids”.
- YouTube video removals doubled at some stage in lockdown
- YouTube fined $170m in US over kid’s privacy violation
In a declaration, a YouTube spokesperson said: “Over the previous few years, we have labored hard to provide youngsters and families with protections and controls that allow them to view age-suitable content material.
“We’ve made extensive investments within the YouTube youngster’s app to make it more secure, and to serve more educational and enriching content material for children, primarily based on standards advanced with experts and mother and father.
“Additionally, on YouTube, we do no longer serve customised ads along ‘made for youngsters’ content, and practice additional protections to make sure we are recommending age-suitable content material for youngsters and households.”
‘Hidden advertising’
In 2019, Google agreed to pay $170m (£124m) in a settlement with the Federal trade fee for accumulating and selling kid’s facts without parental consent. YouTube committed to privacy protections for youngsters and the elimination of personalised commercials.
Consistent with the letter, some movies regarded to be “smuggling in hidden marketing and advertising with product placements by way of kid’s influences”.
The letter claimed that one research group, which it did not name, determined handiest approximately 4% of films had an excessive educational fee. Much of the relaxation was low great content material along with toy unboxing and motion pictures of people playing video games.
It additionally stated that one mother had stated a video that contained recommendation on the way to commit suicide. After the video was stated, the letter alleges YouTube didn’t take away it for 8 months.
The letter requested YouTube to deliver a bunch of documents, inclusive of:
- Records approximately the pinnacle 200 channels and what sort of time on common children spent watching them
- An in depth explanation of ways paid commercials are selected for show to kids
- A rationalisation of ways the advice algorithm determines which movies to promote to children
- Quantity of videos eliminated due to the fact they were irrelevant from 2016 to 2020
- Variety of channels or creators blocked for the duration of the equal time-frame
