I usually take these consumer group complaints with a grain of salt, at least at first, but I have a four-year-old who loves his YouTube Kids app. Here’s the beef:
Organizations including the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have jointly filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission against the recently released YouTube Kids app, arguing that the service attempts to “take advantage of children’s developmental vulnerabilities and violate long-standing media and advertising safeguards that protect children viewing television.”
“YouTube Kids is the most hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen,” Dale Kunkel, professor of communication at the University of Arizona, said in a statement Tuesday. “Many of these advertising tactics are considered illegal on television, and it’s sad to see Google trying to get away with using them in digital media.”
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The YouTube Kids app follows the path set out by other video companies, including Netflix, that offer children-only sections. But YouTube’s app is supported by advertising, while Netflix Kids comes with a monthly subscription to the company’s streaming service.
I’m deleting the app from my younger son’s iPad for now, and telling him if he needs to watch videos, he still has Netflix.
But mostly I’m going to kick him outside to play in the sunshine.
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