[Roritharr]

What Kagi or anyone could work on, is an actually working version of YouTube Kids.

I literally Pi-Hole Blocked all of YouTube after my son started reading the Bible after a Minecraft Influencer started preaching throughout most of his videos to the point my son became a bit too much interested in the topic.

Not that I'm a rabid atheist or would deny my child such a thing, but if THAT can enter my 8yr olds brain via his short allowed time where he can browse by himself, i'm worried what else is coming his way through it.

I'd love to give him access to valuable videos between rules I describe by natural language and can test myself, but nothing like this exists.

[MostlyStable]

I had a lot of frustrations with the Youtube Kids app until I realized that if, when setting it up, rather than choosing the appropriate age range, you picked the "custom" (or whatever it was, it was annoyingly hidden all the way to the right, so you can't even see it at first), you are able to white list channels and videos, rather than just blacklist. Why this feature is hidden behind a different age selector rather than being part of any of the age settings I do not understand, but it's a lot better, and it could prevent the issue you describe, although admittedly it does require more work on the parents part to find and approve appropriate content. This is easier for younger kids at least.

[theshrike79]

Now only if they added parental controls for the standard Youtube app to block Shorts completely.

My kids aren't allowed to use TikTok and now Google decided to shove it in Youtube - and make it impossible to block.

[philips]

I wrote a blog post about that if it helps others. It is a real game changer: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

[aNapierkowski]

wait is this real? this is a thing ive been wanting, some channels that are fine are not in ytkids and some of the stuff in ytkids is just junk if we could curate a whitelist that would be perfect

[voisin]

Is there a list somewhere to start a whitelist from?

[skydhash]

Why not curate a video repository? I think novelty is actually overrated and even harmful for kid. Deeper exploration on familiar subject may be beneficial as that would let his/her imagination to take on the job of inventing new things.

[kridsdale1]

I did this. I set up a plex server in my home that connects to a NAS which has the full runs of every PBS style kids show that I could find and found good reviews of. Along with classic movies.

Just trying to recreate the media conditions of my youth, with modern content as well as long as it’s “pure”.

I’m also putting me-vetted YouTube content like Kurzgesagt on it.

[bombcar]

Jellyfin + ytdlp + playlists = pretty good, in general. and avoids ads; the ads are worse than almost anything else you can find.

[mvieira38]

This seems like a cool idea. Maybe using something like a Peertube instance to join like-minded parents would end up working out for scaling

[jmathai]

I found that most of the content on YouTube kids existed as a means to advertise products. I don't necessarily care to understand the economics of it because it just doesn't provide enough value to bother.

What I do understand is that I don't want my kids being tricked into watching ads because something about watching adults open toys is entertaining.

[newsclues]

Kids have many people they can ask for gifts from.

[mvieira38]

May I ask how are you dealing with the hole Youtube left in his life? I grew up on the internet, but seeing the effects it had on me and the world I don't want the same for my kids. The problem is I don't even know what to do in my own free time if not browsing Youtube or playing games, imagine a kid.

[skydhash]

My advice would be hobbies. Learning and practicing stuff can take a lot of your free time if you’re passionate about it, meaning you give it your full attention.

[theshrike79]

PBS and whatever equivalent there is in your country.

There is a metric ton of professionally made non-commercial content for kids.

[jkkramer]

As a fellow parent and hater of YouTube Kids, I've thought about building a replacement.

What holds me back is knowing that -- if this was an iPad app, for example -- I'd be at the mercy of both Google AND Apple. It's a minefield of sensitive topics:

- Kids & privacy

- Content moderation

- Intellectual property

- Third-party UGC

Way too risky.

[petepete]

This is why iPlayer is worth its weight in gold in the UK.

[calvinmorrison]

Church-goer son-of-a-pastor die-hard-reformed christian here in agreement...

sorry there are too many whackos out there. I'd feel more comfortable with my kids learning from Catholic Priests than some random youtuber. In fact, my kids are probably going to go to catholic school.

The reason why we have denominations in part is to maintain the education of the clergy and keep dogma, or theology, in check.

(even if we disagree at times, at least most of the organized christian church can agree on the basic creeds - something that youtube seems hell bent on for clicks is getting you into nontrinitarian and whacky stuff!)

[smusamashah]

For my 3yo, I have setup YouTube kids but with only approved content. He gets to see only selected channels or videos. YouTube with search enabled for kids isn't as walled as one might expect.

[stankot]

I stumbled on this some time ago and saved it for when my kid grows up enough. It is a collection of a few thousands kid friendly videos. I think their curation is pretty good, but check it out for yourself.

https://thekidshouldseethis.com/

[pyuser583]

What did these videos say? I'd like to let the leaders of our church know, so they can add it to the sermons.

[thijson]

My son watches this YouTuber, it's Eystreem. My guess is that he uses the Bible as a prop to add drama to his videos. Another video he was marketing Prime energy drinks. Maybe I should download a whole bunch of 80's TV shows line A-team or Macyver, and only have that available to watch

[phobotics]

I think DudePerfect have an app that is essentially this. Heavily curated kid friendly content. It might only be paid though.

[jordanmorgan10]

Yup - our kids use it and it’s the only “YouTube” kinda thing that’s worked for our family.

[curiousgal]

Shocking at this may seem, it is your job as a parent to protect your kid and not expect a platform to do it for you. It's not that hard to limit kids' screen time and control the content. A simple yt-dlp cron job with Jellyfin would work fine.

[philips]

What is wrong with YouTube Kids? I think it works fairly well and use it in my own home: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids

[ninkendo]

To add to this, YouTube Kids is an entirely different beast altogether depending on if it’s on a touch screen your kid can control, vs on a TV where you have the remote.

I feel a lot of people talk terribly about YouTube Kids because they’re imagining you just hand them a tablet with the app, let them pick what they want to watch, and walk away. And then the kid finds some super suspect videos and gets brainwashed or something.

But here I am letting my 2 and 4 year olds watch Miss Rachel and Super Simple Songs and Big Block Singsong and the occasional Elmo’s World on the TV, while I’m in the room, and people on this forum would call me a monster for doing this… it’s really wild.

[cyanydeez]

thats not a real filterable example

[d3752934]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that isn't going to be happening for this particular individual.

[Carrok]

If you think an 8 year old should read the bible, it makes me think you haven't actually read the whole thing. Some pretty atrocious stuff in there.

[dang]

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[tombert]

There are parts of the Bible where a prostitute is mutilated, butchered, and shipped to her rapists [1], parts where a woman fantasizes about men with donkey dicks and horse cum [2], parts where a father is seduced by and impregnates his daughters [3], children being murdered for making fun of a bald guy [4], and many, many more things that I don't think would be appropriate for a small child.

It's fine if you believe this stuff, and maybe these are layered with beautiful metaphors and it's beautiful when you know the subtext, but I don't think it would be appropriate to read a lot of this to a young child. Maybe you don't agree, but I think it can hardly be surprising that people wouldn't want their kids to read it until they are at least a little older.

[1] Judges 19

[2] Ezekiel 23:20

[3] Genesis 19:30–38

[4] 2 Kings 2:23–25.

[daemoens]

Read the rest of his comment

> Not that I'm a rabid atheist or would deny my child such a thing, but if THAT can enter my 8yr olds brain via his short allowed time where he can browse by himself, i'm worried what else is coming his way through it.

[themaninthedark]

It was not that the kid was reading the bible that scared the parent but that they took a sudden deep(obsessive?) interest in something after only being exposed to it on Youtube.

I have kids and I too would be concerned if they suddenly took interest in a topic. Not that long ago two twelve year old girls murdered their friend because "Slenderman".

Religious topics can lead to radicalization and/or cults.

[totallynothoney]

Well, one might quite reasonably think a Minecraft youtuber isn't the best person to teach their child about the Bible, even if someone is Christian. Even considering that, how appropriate a religious text totally depends on the parents. I think GP would be questioned less if it was Qur'an quotes on Minecraft videos and he subsequently blocked Youtube.

[cwkoss]

No single book has incited more violence throughout history

[V__]

Have you read the bible? Lots of stories are absolutely not child appropriate.

[Retr0id]

The bible has some rather child-unfriendly content, in parts.

[Modified3019]

We live in times where the bible is considered a serious yardstick for morality, rather than the fucked up Bronze Age mythology that it is.

Considering it’s god is a raging and abusive narcissist[0], and how often the religion is used as a tool to justify hatred, physical and psychological abuse, I would be just as concerned at someone actively trying to proselytize. Religion is entirely unnecessary for a moral upbringing.

I would likewise be just as concerned if 4chan’s /pol/ started to target my kids with their propaganda. There’s a strong difference between intellectual good faith exploration of politics and world events, and harmful radical indoctrination intent on controlling their actions and reactions.

As another poster said, at best it’s a good opportunity to sit down with your kids, and show them the tricks and traps being used against them, but they are too inexperienced to be let alone to be preyed upon with impunity.

[0] A wonderful resource outlining the parallels, which helped me escape from the abuse I grew up with: https://www.youtube.com/@TheraminTrees/videos

[eru]

Why not? Would you let your kids read just about any cult material?

[Capricorn2481]

Yes such a shame we can't scare children with violent ghost stories anymore so they don't become gay.