If kids 'need' TV shows to watch and parents need a source of children's entertainment they can trust, isn't that were we normally expect an organization like PBS to fill the need?
With an organization like PBS, they have a reputation of manually curating what they show, while something like Youtube Kids just has automated systems and manual reports to supplement it. It's hard to believe Google/Youtube could ever provide automated curation as well as PBS. How many media articles that boil down to "youtube showed this to kids but PBS never would have" are we going to have before people get the idea?
I think YouTube is avoiding responsibility here - hosting videos for kids with billions of views and running ads on them, while saying "it's not for kids" to save money to actually curate / avoid showing videos not safe for them.
YouTube kids is also disingenuous here - no 10+ year old would want to watch that.
Saying "it's the responsibility of parents" is the same PR driven avoiding of responsibility by YouTube.
YouTube themselves make it as easy as possible for kids to use YouTube (preinstalled apps on TVs etc), they should bear some responsibility too.
Oh, I completely agree. Youtube should stop pretending they have a service suitable for children. Youtube should be making it clear to consumers that their service is for mature viewers only because they are incapable of vetting content for children with the accuracy consumers rightfully expect from a children's entertainment company.
Either go out of their way to prevent kids from using the service or invest and make it safe for kids. I think they will lobby / PR heavily to continue to do neither.
With an organization like PBS, they have a reputation of manually curating what they show, while something like Youtube Kids just has automated systems and manual reports to supplement it. It's hard to believe Google/Youtube could ever provide automated curation as well as PBS. How many media articles that boil down to "youtube showed this to kids but PBS never would have" are we going to have before people get the idea?