The concept of YouTube Kids, their version of YouTube that only shows videos suitable for children, is great. In reality, the YouTube Kids app is kind of a mess, with unsuitable content making its way in regularly. To solve this, it seems Google is going to release a new version this time filled with carefully selected curated content chosen by humans.
The rumour comes via BuzzFeed New, who were told that this new app was being worked on by ‘a source familiar with YouTube’s plans’.
The source told Buzzfeed that the new app would exist alongside, but separately to the current YouTube Kids app, but would ‘only display videos from channels that a team of YouTube curators handpicks’, rather than rely on the algorithm currently in use that feeds the YouTube Kids app.
In terms of when we could see the new app, the source said it could be released ‘within the coming weeks’, which with Google I/O only a month away could tie-in nicely.
YouTube Kids has its problems and Google is likely keen to keep bringing in new, future users and a safe YouTube Kids area makes a good launching pad for bringing in a new generation of users who trust the YouTube brand. We’ll see what happens on this front in the next few weeks.
It needs the ability for me to be able to lock it down and choose what channels I want my son to watch, not me have to block every channel of rubbish that 3 seconds later there’s another 100 of them exactly the same with a different name.
Great news. We removed YouTube kids from our kids devices because it’s mostly mind numbing rot.
Can’t say I’d be letting my kids watch anything YouTube unsupervised, as it’s mostly garbage or inappropriate for kids. An app that’s curated “programmatically” is never going to be foolproof.