YouTube Kids tries to block 12-year-olds with 2nd-grade math questions

YouTube either has a genius way to teach kids math or a very weak parental lock.

On Friday, the video site launched its children's platform YouTube Kids, which attempts to curb growing complaints that youngsters are stumbling into disturbing adult content on the full website. The app features age-appropriate content and requires a parent's permission to access but, as some adults have noticed, those locks aren't exactly secure.

YouTube Kids is a standalone app available on Apple's App Store and Google Play. Parents set up the app by choosing if their child is under 4 years old, 5–7, or 8–12, which in turn influences what kids can watch. Children need to get a parent's permission to use the app at all, but instead of setting some kind of password, YouTube Kids determines if its user is an adult by asking a single-digit multiplication problem:

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That's the kind of math you'd expect to see in a second grade classroom, where students would still fall under YouTube Kids' "younger" designation. And if YouTube access is an immediate reward, it may motivate "preschool" kids to get ahead on their studies.