I was watching a YouTube video and the Save button was grayed out. When I clicked it, it said this feature was disabled for content marked as “made for kids.” (This is a box you can check when you add a video to your channel.) It seems they are trying to “comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and other laws.” I can see why they might turn off comments (because the Internet), but aside from the fact that the video is not actually targeted to kids, I cannot imagine why the ability to save a video to a Favorites list would be prohibited. What is the rationale for that?
YouTube knows what videos are saved to your list and targets ads/future videos to show you based on this info. Since they can get in so much trouble if it turns out they have any info about a kid’s viewing habits recorded, they work very hard to ensure this doesn’t happen. So you can’t save a video that’s made for kids, because YouTube would then know how many people saved the video, and since it’s marked as for children they want no info on it whatsoever.
You know what’s really funny? I find the “normal” YouTube algorithm way less likely to take my son to crazy and weird shit that “You Tube Kids”. The endless nerds comparing Star Wars ships to each other and Minecraft videos are honestly pretty wholesome, careful not to get themselves demonetized, and seem to just endlessly lead into each other (he only watches YouTube on the family TV, so that we can keep an eye on it).
My kids watch some weird stuff on YouTube. Not bad per se, nothing that I would tell them not to watch, but just cringey junk done by people with either horrible voices or by parents with far too much time and money on their hands (Diana, I’m looking at you!)
Sure. But the specific “kids” version seems to be worse and more predatory.
Babale got it in one. While you’re watching it, you can’t save a “kids” video you’re watching to any lists. You also can’t save any of the videos the algorithm is recommending to you because you’re watching a “kids” video, regardless of whether they’re marked as “made for kids” or not.
I agree with the scare quotes because I’ve seen a lot of videos that somehow got marked as “made for kids” that are in no way wholesome.
This “protectionist” code also makes it impossible to remove anything from your lists while you’re watching a “kids” video. It’s possible to get things “made for kids” saved onto a list, either through a workaround I probably shouldn’t detail here, or perhaps they got on your list(s) before the video was flagged as “kids”.
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That’s my post; hope you liked it!