No targeted advertisements, with content filtering and parental control: We tested the new and free service launched this morning in Israel • You will not find Spider-Man and Elsa there • And there is also a tip from champions
Spider-Man and Elsa are two very popular characters for children of all ages, but can also become parental horror.
And not because Elsa did not control her powers and injured her sister in an accident.
But simply because the two have become a symbol of a problematic phenomenon: YouTube videos that move on the range of weird-kinky-mini-scary and are exposed to the eyes of children.
These videos, which made headlines in Israel at the end of 2017, show different characters from the world of children in situations that are not exactly pornographic, but also very innocent.
The situations are somewhere in the middle, but distinctly in the disturbing direction.
The solution of YouTube in the United States to this problem, and in general to problems that arose as a result of watching children on YouTube, is YouTube Kids, a more filtered and secure app than YouTube, which was launched this morning (Tuesday) in Israel as well, and there is no mention of these videos.
With the opening of the app, which is available for
Android
,
iOS
and also
in a browser version
, an opening animation is played that includes what looks like a cute salt shaker, an octopus that takes selfies and other lovable creatures.
It lasts 12 seconds and happens every time you close the app completely and reopen, with no option to skip.
After that, you can start watching movies, with monotonous and repetitive music playing in the lobby of the app that cannot be turned off, without completely silencing the device.
This cacophonous starting point proves that the app is not for adults.
For my five-year-old daughter and a bit, the matter was not significant at all.
The video and music do not seem to bother her, and she has very intuitively managed to find episodes of series that she loves educationally, and cartoons that are the complete opposite of Spider-Man Elsa videos.
Anyone who is used to the regular YouTube app, the one designed for adults, will discover a completely different world.
The content floats on a color screen that is divided into five categories - music, where you will find children's songs, learning - where you can find work, experiments and also a comparison between Noa Kirl from 2019 to 2020 that teaches when she released the song Pouch, programs - there are episodes from TV shows, And two more categories that made me scratch my head and wonder what the difference is between them: interesting things to discover and recommended.
A small arrow key will lead you to re-watch the movies your children have seen, or the channels you have subscribed to.
The playing of the movies is also very different from the usual YouTube.
Clicking anywhere on the non-play screen will zoom in and out and will not play the movie.
This is done solely from a large play button in the corner.
It is also impossible to skip 10 seconds backwards or forwards in the video by double-tapping the screen (and if you did not know it on regular YouTube, then for nothing).
In the corner of the screen there is an easy search to activate, and there is also a voice search including Hebrew support.
It does require three keystrokes (and one-time permission to open the microphone), but yes, your child can excitedly read "Papa the Pig" and get all of her videos, and in Hebrew (there for some reason she is not a pig by the way. But "Little", What's the matter with that?).
Either way, when it comes to the interface, the feeling is that kids can teach their parents how it works.
The most important part of YouTube Kids is parental control.
The app can be distributed to users so that each child gets their own profile (but there is no denying that one child will simply open his brother's profile with a few taps on the screen).
You can watch the viewing history at any moment to make sure there was nothing problematic, you can block an entire video or channel (even if the content is super-worthy, and it just doesn't sit well with you).
The problem is that you can't release a single video or channel from a block if you made a mistake or changed your mind.
Everyone needs to be released.
You can set a timer that will limit the screen time to one minute to 60 minutes.
Either way, all options can be protected by solving a duplicate exercise (you laughed. YouTube Kids itself has videos for learning arithmetic), or by using a four-digit password.
Tip of champions?
Tap on them with the screen right in front of you and not in the toddler's field of view.
Some children have hawk eyes and a sharp memory.
YouTube Kids has advertisements, which are clearly marked, appear infrequently and are limited in their topics, as promised by YouTube.
For example, there will be no advertisements for food or drinks, even if they are "healthy", no ads for dating apps and more.
Anyone who pays for YouTube Premium as an adult will not see commercials on YouTube Kids either.
Put the kids?
Is it possible to trust 100 percent round and beautiful that you can let your toddler watch without any supervision at all?
Definately not.
Even in "children" content, each of us has our own worldview and boundaries.
Even YouTube Kids already found inappropriate content to say the least just a year and a half ago, which requires Google to constantly improve itself.
Parental control mechanisms can be greatly improved, as can the interface, to make the transition easier for parents who want to play videos and regular children to the old YouTube interface.
Is this a good solution for a parent who wants to give their child screen time and is afraid of all the disgust that is out there on the internet?
Definitely.
But always under some supervision, even if not close.
The YouTube Kids app is much safer than the regular YouTube when it comes to kids.
The commercials are more refined, and the collection of details, according to YouTube, is much more limited.
