YouTube might move all children's content off the main platform

YouTube kids app.
(Image credit: bigtunaonline/Alamy Stock Photo)

YouTube is reportedly weighing some significant changes in response to criticism that the platform is not safe for children.

The company's executives are discussing the possibility of moving all children's content from the main YouTube platform onto YouTube Kids, its separate app for children, in order "to better protect young viewers from objectionable videos," The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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YouTube Kids was launched in 2015 as a separate service focused on content for kids, although it has come under fire for instances in which inappropriate content made their way onto the app. Bloomberg recently reported that YouTube has tested the idea of hand-picking each video that appears on YouTube Kids in order to better filter out inappropriate content. But the company reportedly found during internal testing that "kids between seven and 12 grew bored of the limited library and went to surf regular YouTube." This Bloomberg report also includes the detail that "four people at Google privately admitted that they don't let their kids watch YouTube unsupervised and said the sentiment was widespread at the company."

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.