YouTube is trying to bridge the gap between its dedicated Kids app and regular YouTube for parents with teens and teens.
Youtube announced On Wednesday, it will launch a new “supervised” beta experience that introduces additional features and settings for regulating the types of content that older children can access on the platform. Content will be restricted based on the choice of one of the three categories. “Explore” will launch videos suitable for children aged 9 and over, “Explore More” will bump them into a category with videos for children aged 13 and older, and “Most of YouTube” will show them almost everything except age restrictions and topics that are sensitive to non-adults.
YouTube says it will use a mix of machine learning, human revision and user input to use the vet’s content – a system that is there spectacularly worked in the past for YouTube. Apparently trying to come up with whatever problems arise busty moderation system, the announcement blog said that YouTube knows ‘that our systems will make mistakes and continue to evolve over time.’
Clearly, any tool that attempts to filter inappropriate content on YouTube is welcome and essential. But guardians can not rely on YouTube to take the helm and guide the experience of their children. We saw how well it worked in the past on YouTube’s dedicated Kids app – that’s not great.
Part of the problem is that YouTube’s platform, like that of other social media giants, is just too big to adequately moderate. One wrong turn can send your child rabbit hole of conspiracies whether they were looking for them or not. If we are honest, teenagers and tweens are also likely to find a way to look at the content they want to watch, no matter how child-resistant the home computer is.
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All that has been said is a middle ground between YouTube Kids and the chaos of normal YouTube. Just do not bank on a perfect moderation system. Even YouTube says so.