
Kidfluencers' Rampant YouTube Marketing Creates Minefield for Google - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-20/kidfluencers-rampant-youtube-marketing-creates-minefield-for-google
======
duxup
I used to use YouTube Kids for a bit with my kids. I always kept an eye on
what they chose, but I'd let them choose (even if just to see how it would
play out). After a while I watched my kids choose merch focused videos and a
lot of very low quality sort of inane stuff that shows up on there. I'd block
them but the app really doesn't let you block them, there are always more.

You also can't just white list things in the Youtube Kids app. There's
straight up no option to be able to affirmatively choose what your kids get to
pick from.

So now YouTube is just straight forbidden unless I'm picking the videos and
that effectively means my kids don't see it at all outside of when I have a
fun video to share... and even then I'm wary of what YouTube might suggest
what to watch next...

With YouTube it feels like no matter what you do you're in a very sketchy
neighborhood where there might be a good house here, but maybe some hell hole
next door that Youtube is more than happy to send you to... It occurs to me
that while I loved the promise of an internet that offered all aspects of
humanity, on a site to site basis, I don't think I want that, even for just
me.

So now we're back to the PBS Kids Videos app as the only route my kids get to
independently pick what they watch. I'm pretty much done with YouTube for now
as far as my kids go just due to the rabbit holes of terrible things on there,
and the one time they take a shot at kid friendly stuff, it's really doesn't
empower me as a parent.

I'm really enjoying Odd Squad.

~~~
Sendotsh
> You also can't just white list things in the Youtube Kids app. There's
> straight up no option to be able to affirmatively choose what your kids get
> to pick from.

I "whitelist" YouTube for my kids by using youtube-dl to scrape the few good
channels for them (Lah Lah, Peppa Pig, etc). I pay for YouTube Premium
already, and I only scrape from official channels, so I'm not pirating
anything but rather directly accessing channels I paid to view, without having
to go through YouTube's horrible interface which constantly (and purposely)
pushes crap into my kids view that I never asked for.

Other than that, my kids aren't allowed on YouTube. They can watch scraped
videos from our NAS or ABC Kids (Australian Gov-Curated kids TV).

~~~
sk0g
Sounds like that could easily be a Chrome extension, though?

Say, a whitelist for Youtube. In instances where Youtube recommendations fail,
they'll just see a black thumbnail/ no text, and won't click it. If they do,
can just block the playing of the video too. It will teach them skills with
finding what they want online, etc, while you're at it.

I'm guessing this is modern ABC Kids too, because a decade or so ago, ABC Kids
had some oddly dark stuff that's stuck with me for a while now...

Your way's probably sleeker, especially if it's hooked up to a NAS + XBMC or
something of that sort, though :)

~~~
Sendotsh
My kids are only toddlers so not sure what ABC Kids was like before, but at
least for the last 5 years it's been incredible. Play School, Peppa Pig,
Wiggles, Daniel Tiger, Lah Lah, basically nothing but educational shows or
clean entertainment (apparently vetted by educators? I can't confirm that
though, just something I read somewhere).

We're pretty strict about screen-based entertainment never being wasted time
and always having some practical benefit, and ABC Kids has been great.

For our YouTube stuff I simply have a youtube-dl bash script I pass a URL or
playlist too and it scrapes it at highest quality MP4 then copies it to the
/Kids/YouTube/ folder on the NAS, which the TV can natively play from. I'm
working on a web app running local-only so we can do it from our phones too.

~~~
lalos
Is this a common thing or parents just usually give free access to youtube?

~~~
CompuHacker
It is uncommon for people to download YouTube content. A home server is also
right out.

------
supernova87a
Let's be clear about all this, and where the problem arises from.

Use case #1. If Youtube only allowed people to upload videos (whether for a
fee, or no charge) and share them with people they know, there would be no
issue. You send videos to your friends.

Use case #2. If Youtube allowed advertisers to create videos and share those
links via channels they control or purchase (e.g. paying a fee per view),
there would be no issue. Companies you know market to you by video.

The _self-created_ problem that Youtube has is that it wants to make money by
charging for showing category #2 to those in category #1 who didn't ask for
it.

Youtube / Google could choose not to have this problem tomorrow by not selling
ads, recommending random videos to people, etc.

It's their obligation to figure out this problem, and totally up to them how
to solve it. It's not some social or government problem to fix.

~~~
airstrike
> Let's be clear about all this, and where the problem arises from.

Yes, let's. It arises from parents letting kids not only watch but outright
discover content unsupervised.

If it weren't YouTube, it would be [insert name of threat to kids].

With both parents working, supervising kids is easier said than done – I'm not
saying it's their fault for having to go to work to support their families,
but the responsibility of policing their own kids is certainly theirs and
nobody else's.

~~~
sbov
We're dealing with this right now.

Please, tell me how I can whitelist channels and/or individual videos on
youtube for my kids. I'm not being sarcastic - I've done a lot of looking and
can't seem to find out how.

There are settings for "keep it kid friendly" but that isn't enough. Some kid
friendly videos are terrible for kids.

We've resorted to only letting the kids watch videos on a fire tablet, because
we can control exactly what they can see on it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If you really wanted it you could download the videos for the channels and
host them locally.

Even then I wouldn't trust most channels; a channel could sell out and have
elsa&spidey 'porn' on it tomorrow. As a parent I carefully curate YouTube and
won't let the kids watch it on their own.

Netflix "kids" channel is quite good IMO, some of the content - like Story
Bots - I really quite like. Could do with more shows with people in though,
most of it's animation.

------
munificent
_> On TV, the ground rules are clearer: Ads come when the show takes a break._

Oh, you sweet summer child. TV and film would love you to believe that, but
today product placement omnipresent. Michael Bay's Transformers movie is
basically an ad for General Motors occasionally interrupted by robots. It's
not enough to jam product placement into every inch of cinema being produced
today. They now also go back retroactively insert product placement into older
productions[1].

[1]: [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/old-videos-
new...](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/old-videos-new-ads-
advertisings-shocking-next-frontier-200619/)

~~~
flanbiscuit
Basically if I can clearly see a real product's logo, even for a quick moment,
it's 90% chance that it was paid product placement

~~~
dsl
Unless someone really screwed up, any logo you see is absolutely an
advertisement (with the exception of live format stuff like the news). They
have to get permission to use brands, just like clearance for songs.

~~~
jobigoud
Are you sure? What law would you breaking by having someone drink a specific
brand of soda on screen in a short movie? Trademark? What if it's topical?

------
tyfon
In my country (Norway) you're not allowed to target children with marketing.

Coca-cola has already had a smack on their fingers for using "influencers"
whose primary audience are kids on their channel [1].

This might hit google directly if enough of this stuff happens. The end result
I hope is that videos with kids are forced private so the parents can't use
them as props to make money. It's not like the children have any say when
their life is being spread out on the net.

The US which is the main base of google has unfortunately not ratified the
convention on the rights of children [2] but in article 16 of this treaty [3]
it is stated that children have a right to privacy.

[1]
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fkultur%2Fcoke-
tv-felt-for-reklame-rettet-mot-norske-barn-1.14366096)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child)

[3]
[https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-1...](https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-14%20AM/Ch_IV_11p.pdf)
page 37

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larrik
> On TV, the ground rules are clearer: Ads come when the show takes a break.

Except this isn't true at all. For one, they run ads over the top of shows
(which is super obnoxious), but at least they tend to be for other shows
rather than products.

But even decades ago, shows like Transformers and Ninja Turtles were really
just toy advertisements (literally, not being cynical). How do you distinguish
that from this Youtube stuff?

~~~
jobigoud
> they run ads over the top of shows (which is super obnoxious)

Whose idea was this? When did it start? I've seen this mostly on American TV
shows for the past few years. It completely breaks the immersion even on
torrented content where the ads have been removed. (It's impossible to follow
anything on regular TV with the multiple ads interruption.)

~~~
larrik
It started like a decade ago, I think? It's gotten a lot worse, though.

It's like they really really want you to only watch shows on Bluray or
streaming.

------
40acres
It's assumed that large centralized platforms make the problem worse but I'm
really not too sure.

When I first started using the internet, AIM was still all the rave. I'm not
sure exactly how but I got into the habit of joining random chatrooms and
messaging random people on AIM. As a minor I was under way more threat there
than I think kidfluencers on YouTube are these days (..so many 'asl?'
comments). The major difference was that advertisers were not on AIM.

Eventually I got deeper into the rabbit hole and started to see the underbelly
of the internet, things were much more of a maze back then. Even today,
knowing all I know about how to find the worst of the worst online -- I mainly
stick to huge platforms, anecdotally it's a lot harder to get caught up in the
maze online than it used to be. Maybe that's a good thing, everything is out
in the open for these platforms to mitigate.

~~~
mc32
I just hope it doesn’t begin infantilizjnv everyone where everything must
gravitate toward “Kawaii” and have big bugeyes and have high pitched voices.

------
jpm_sd
As a parent who grew up with the internet (I'm 40), I am astonished that
anyone allows their children to watch anything they want on YouTube. So much
utter garbage.

~~~
Ancalagon
I think the problem today moreso than 30 years ago is that the technology to
view youtube videos is ubiquitous, cheap, and easy to conceal. Just the other
day a coworker of mine was complaining that his child had snuck their ipod
into their room and been watching youtube videos under the blankets late into
the night.

~~~
jpm_sd
My kids are still young (5, 6, 9), so I have yet to fight most of those
battles. But I've already told them they can wait to have their own mobile
devices until they turn 16... We'll see if I can hold out.

~~~
taeric
Take care that your kids don't lose learning how to use technology. I knew
several parents growing up that were surprised a few of us were so good at
computers. Experience builds quickly. Even just running a bbs or playing games
on a bbs was enough to build decent exposure. And I'm sure there were terrible
things there.

~~~
jpm_sd
My 9-year old is learning to code with a Kano Harry Potter kit, and also
learning tinkercad and 3D printing in her classroom! She doesn't need a
smartphone/ipod/etc.

~~~
taeric
I do love those. They have YouTube, though. Don't they?

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hbosch
I can't shake the notion that these "Kidfluencers" are exploited by their
parents and large companies in order to seduce other children (maybe this is
obvious but I want to keep a seed of doubt in my mind that these kids actually
enjoy making these videos, for fun). In my dream world, anyone in the business
of "kidfluencing" would be completely de-monetized across every social media
network, and _all_ marketing directly to children would be strictly regulated.

------
purple_ducks
Well, if YouTube did nothing when 2 (very big with kids) stars were promoting
a shady gambling site to minors, I have little faith they'll do something
until the EU hits them hard with a court appearance & yet another multi
billion euro fine.

[https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/01/02/jake-paul-ricegum-
yout...](https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/01/02/jake-paul-ricegum-youtube-
mystery-boxes-mysterybrands-keemstar/)

------
kup0
_Kidfluencer_ is possibly the most repulsive portmanteau I've seen the media
create so far

------
jlj
My 8 year old was really into Minecraft videos. I started noticing him watch
videos of "mods" with gun-based first person shooter games, and "trolling"
where they blow up each others' creations. He talked about "slenderman" and
"fortnight" like he had seen/played them before.

When he started talking about what he saw in the videos as something he
himself did, we decided to pull the plug. That was scary for me as a parent.
Too much stimulation for a kid, and way too much exposure to things his brain
isn't ready to handle.

Added this to my home PC's hosts file for now until I figure out a better
solution. Facebook was just a "while I'm in there" addition in case he gets
the urge to try it.

127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

~~~
pbhjpbhj
There are plenty of YouTube proxy sites, including Bing (I think).

------
bitxbit
As a parent of two kids I have strong feelings and opinions regarding this
matter. To be fair, there are a few responsible content creators. Jangbricks
is one good example and he’s well aware that his audience is largely made up
of kids. But youtube is a place of unfiltered and unedited contents and thus
is not an appropriate place for kids. I strongly advise parents to not expose
children to youtube even if they’re supervised.

------
tmaly
I was able to white list specific videos by embedding them in my own website.
For this to work, you also have to turn off the play next auto suggest on the
video.

This has been the only way I have found to limit viewing for kids to specific
videos.

------
thorwasdfasdf
If google won't allow apps or web sites to offer a curated list of videos, I
think it's time to get off YouTube and create a competing service. Perhaps,
someone can create a Video Site just for kids.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am still working on my philosophy around this but

1\. The idea of a split between platform provider (ie hosting) and _doscovery_
(ie promotion) is an important one

2\. Google's PageRank assigns "juice" to a trusted domain - but youtube and
facebook break that concept and so google (or all search engines) need to have
clearer ways to define "publisher responsible for content that gets some
recommendation juice"

2.a. By splitting the hosting and recommendation we can start to see different
curation approaches - this dark maze of youtube recommendations (all I get is
more Marvel) could be repacked with different curation algorithms - and the
more data different AI has to share the clearer the dark / light patches can
be seen by researchers.

3\. Paid ad disclosure is a simple one to solve - we do it on TV all the time.
Quirky home videos are great - but once you have ten million followers you are
a business and can afford the regulation

4\. Yes paedophiles do spend a lot of time watching kids videos online. We can
use unusual watch time patterns to spot this, and that's good - but really
paedophilia has been a problem for 10,000 years and we as society need to find
wider bigger ways to tackle this - along with medicine this will be a huge win
for social ROI

5\. In short regulation is coming to all these platforms - but agreeing
international rules for same platforms is going to involve amazing new levels
of international co-operation and questions of sovereignty- let's try not to
Brexit the lot up.

~~~
d1zzy
> 4\. Yes paedophiles do spend a lot of time watching kids videos online. We
> can use unusual watch time patterns to spot this, and that's good - but
> really paedophilia has been a problem for 10,000 years and we as society
> need to find wider bigger ways to tackle this - along with medicine this
> will be a huge win for social ROI

What is the law that is being broken here? Why is it a problem that someone
(pedophile or not) is watching a lot of legal content (that happens to feature
kids)?

~~~
ceejayoz
What in the quoted sentence claims a law is being broken?

~~~
simmanian
It doesn't. And GP is pretty obviously asking why we should punish pedophiles
for watching kids videos on YT.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Actually I am quite happy for paedophilia to be punished (or rather child
abuse / rape in case there is some distinction between fantasy and acting upon
it)

but the main point I am making is that these platforms all have significant
pressure to "tackle paedophilia" \- and while they do offer a novel approach
(there was a reference recently in wired showing tracking the time spent
watching family videos by people wildly outside of the family network (ie
usually a video of a kid dancing in a tutu is seen by 30/50 people. When views
hit 10,000 there is something to investigate)

But in the end "tackling paedophilia" is not something we can offload to the
AI in youtube - it's a massive social cost and so a massive social investment.

