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YouTube Kids adding human curated channel collections, more parental restrictions

YouTube Kids is a dedicated app from the video network that aims to provide a child friendly experience. Unfortunately, those algorithms charged with policing content have occasionally failed, with Google now launching a more heavily curated section of the app that only displays human-approved videos.

Launched three years ago, YouTube Kids this week is adding video collections from “trusted partners” and the YouTube Kids team. These groupings feature channels handpicked by human curators — rather than algorithms — with more partners added over time. At launch, channel subjects include arts & crafts, music, sports, and learning.

This makes it easy for parents to select only the channel collections and topics they want their kids to access. Just go into Profile Settings, and select from available collections such as Sesame Workshop. We will continue to add more partners over time.

The service is also gaining improved search-off control that limits YouTube Kids to verified channels from the YouTube team when lookup is disabled in the app. Enabling this will also disable any video recommendations.

Meanwhile, later this year, parents will be able to directly select which channels their children can see in the app.

Parents know better than anyone what they want their children to watch. For those parents who want even more control over the videos and channels in the YouTube Kids app, we’re rolling out a feature later this year that will allow parents to specifically handpick every video and channel available to their child in the app.

The old, existing version will still be available, with YouTube promising “to fine-tune, rigorously test and improve our filters for this more open version of our app.” These updates will be available this week on the Play Store and App Store.


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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com