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YouTube Kids will get 3 new child safety features this year
- There will be three new YouTube Kids safety features rolling out this year, with the first slated to arrive sometime this week.
- All three new features center on limiting the content that children can stumble upon within the app.
- YouTube is trying hard to earn back parents’ trust after a series of issues last year.
Ever since last year when it was discovered that kids were exposed to highly inappropriate videos on YouTube, the video service has been working overtime to help parents feel comfortable with letting their children use the platform. As part of that initiative, the company laid out three new safety features that it will roll out to the YouTube Kids app over the current year.
One of these changes will go into effect this week, while the other two will start sometime later.
The first change will give parents the option to limit their kids’ YouTube usage to specially-curated channels. These trusted channels will only offer content that is appropriate for children, such as Sesame Workshop and PBS Kids. YouTube states that more partners will be added over time.
With this new feature, parents won’t have to do any research or tweaking of the app on their own; just switch the feature on and feel comfortable that their children will only see appropriate videos.
This feature will land sometime this week.
Later in the year, parents will be able to handpick channels that reach beyond the partners YouTube selects. This change is an effort to let parents be the final decider when it comes to what they feel comfortable letting their children view.
Finally, YouTube will limit video playback in the YouTube Kids app to verified videos and channels when parents elect to turn YouTube search off. The ability to turn search off already exists in the YouTube Kids app, but this future update will ensure that only verified channels and videos appear as kids watch videos on the platform.
YouTube is quick to point out that parents who are happy with how the YouTube Kids app works now will still have the ability to open up a wider selection of video content. But for parents who are concerned about what is out there and want to limit the chances of problem content appearing in their children’s feeds, these new features will give them that ability.
Yesterday, YouTube released its very first Quarterly Moderation Report, a new feature that will give users a better idea of how the service is cracking down on content that violates its TOS.