
Committed to a Safer Google Play for Families - WalterSobchak
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/08/committed-to-safer-google-play-for.html
======
ilovetux
>> Apps that include children in their target audience need to adhere to our
new policy requirements including appropriate content, showing suitable ads
(learn more), and disclosing personally identifiable information correctly.

so youtube kids would be a flagrant violation of their new policy. why do they
keep recommending this app to me? shouldn't it just be demonitized like they
do to countless devs for unstated reasons.

Google has less than zero trust stored and they should probably learn that
this means they will lose money (sooner or later).

~~~
Simon_says
Youtube Kids is videos OF kids, not videos FOR kids.

~~~
reificator
From Wikipedia:

> _YouTube Kids is a video app developed by YouTube. The app provides a
> version of the service oriented towards children, with curated selections of
> content, parental control features, and filtering of videos not deemed to be
> appropriate to the target audience._

~~~
gambiting
I mean, yes, they say that, but there's plenty of videos(on YouTube, lol)
showing how to get to child-inappropriate videos on YouTube Kids(Jake Paul
videos for instance, they don't show if you search for Jake Paul but there are
other terms you can search for and they will show up).

~~~
reificator
And physically[0], Jake Paul is not a child, further debunking the post I was
replying to initially.

[0]: I'm sure there's a ton of controversy because this is the internet and
that's what you people do for a living, so I'm sure I'll get some posts
claiming he's as mature as a 5 year old or whatever. But Google says born in
1997, which I'm sorry to tell you means he's not a child.

~~~
Simon_says
Jake Paul is mature, FOR a 5 year old.

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visarga
I'm wondering if there is any protection to changing the google account and/or
resetting the phone by the child. My daughter got as far as reinstalling MacOS
to get around parental controls, at which point I gave up trying to use
software to limit her screen time.

~~~
daurnimator
How old was your daughter? In my mind parental controls are never going to be
effective past ~9 years old.

~~~
visarga
She was 14 at the time but she had restrictions because she was preparing for
the high-school entrance exam which is quite tough.

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dymk
The way easier solution to this content rating mess is don’t give your young
child a phone/tablet. Give them a coloring book and a Snap Circuits kit.

I realize this isn’t something Google can do something about; this is directed
at the parents giving an internet connected device to a developing mind.

~~~
killjoywashere
Having tried all the above and far more, I'm here to tell you Snap Circuits
got nowhere with my kids.

I will say I tried to be the dad that gave them access on the theory that
'they'll have to learn sometime, better while they're under parental
supervision." How wrong I was. The phones are like crack to an addict.

My advice to my friends with significantly younger kids (mine are 14 and 17
now): you don't want your kids to be the first in their cohort to have a
phone, and you probably don't want to be last, but you and the parents of
their friends should be competing to see who's last.

~~~
smackay
> competing to see who's last

That's a very interesting observation but to really get it to work requires
very close cooperation between parents. That takes a lot of time and goodwill
which is not easy to create or maintain except in very special circumstances
or in rather closed groups.

Our fatal mistake was to get a phone for our son when he started to walk home
from school in case there was any change in the usual schedule. Once the genie
is out of the bottle any protocol or agreements are negated pretty much
instantly. There are so many pressures to encourage phone use (messaging,
etc.) it's impossible to restore any level of control without (potentially
severe) social consequences for the kids.

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prop84u
Review times will increase to up to 7 days. My impression was that most app
reviews on Google Play are automated and do not involve humans.

Will Google begin to have every single kids app release go through a human
reviewer?

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xg15
While the content ist laudable, did they really just announce that starting
September 1st, devs should plan ahead due to extended review times - and make
the announcement on August 30?

~~~
snek
They announced it back in may: [https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-s...](https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-safer-google-play-for-kids.html)

That article is also linked on the fourth word in this article...

~~~
shimfish
That link doesn't announce increased review times.

However, reviews have been taking days for a while now. Even changing the app
store icon now requires days for approval.

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DoreenMichele
I don't envy parents trying to navigate this issue these days. It seems
completely reasonable for Google to try to help them figure it out by
providing some information.

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Arbalest
Safer for families? How about not advertising to children whose decision
making process is very much compromised, in not being formed yet? Any attempt
to claim they are making things "safer" is simply lip service to a cause that
they, by design, are not in favour of. My children will not be watching
commercial TV nor having access to "smart" devices unless things radically
change (and hopefully I can stick to it).

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neha_t
While the deeper review is fine, Why wasn’t this better planned with more
resources allocated to the review process to keep the time in 2-3 days. And
when I submitted my game - Word Hookup -for internal testing it took 8 days
for approval. Why should internal testing require this prolonged review. 7
days for internal testing is a painful and unacceptable waste of devs time.

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einpoklum
Google Play is safest when you don't use it. Google has too much control over
our lives already.

~~~
jrugk
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

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tus88
Sounds like Google is the one not following a certain policy called federal
law....costing it $200M.

It's a bit like Face#### getting preachy about user privacy.

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stevenicr
Not related to the article as much as related to google decisions and android
in relation to 'families' aka kids and parents..

the parental controls for time that phone went off and was available for
better then nothing.. but at 14th birthday all parental control and oversight
is removed.

I've searched a bit, and found that maybe Disney Circle is the thing closest
to what is needed in situations that I have experienced and seen others try to
contend with. 'popcorn time' comes to mind as an app that was widely mentioned
when searching for the right controls - from what I remember some things with
that fell short. I remember some discussions about an openDNS or similar
'open-souce' dns poisoning service that was similar and competing with disney
circle - but when I went to try it out I felt that is was not going to work
well and I may not get it to function at all from the docs I saw.

Anyhow, I really want an open source / free alternative the gives parents some
controls and clearly explains to teens what is being controlled... I think all
parents need the ability to turn off certain apps, or turn off all apps aside
from a whitelist of apps that could be available when the others are turned
off.

Phones are tricky today in that we want to limit the access to the games at
times, but may want to keep access to a phone app like grooveip or google
voice.

whether it's bed time or dinner time, I think many of us want to limit some
apps but allow other functions, like actually being a phone to still work / be
accessible.

I know some parents want to monitor all discussions, that may be a fine choice
- but whatever other monitoring may be available, I'd like the kids to have
notices about the monitoring.. from parents, from apps, from govments..

While I'm pouring out mu wishlist here, I want an app that monitors for 'bad
words lists )editable and subscribable ) - so that a notice can be sent to
parents if words like suicide or kill are detected via text or audio.. but not
send entire conversations to parents to pry into every detail, and likely miss
important things by getting too much data.

In short, I think google's decision to remove all parental oversight at 13 is
not good, and affordable options for better monitoring are not available at
the moment - and we should do more and better.

While I'm wishlisting, why the hale don't we have auto detection for curse
words in youtube videos (and some other words) and the ability to censor them
with beeps or silence - some of the gaming youtubers may be entertaining
enough to watch but some of the language that is used so much that it injects
itself into the daily vocab of kids like an overplayed rap song is too much.
Youtube has the power and code already there for transcribing, it could do
this kind of thing easy right?

I have one step-kid that will not use youtube on phone at all do the kids only
version at 12 1/2 years old.. and another over 13 that watches so much I worry
and wonder.

