Youtube has Youtube Kids, with two different content sets for younger and older kids.
> You can’t as a user easily block a channel (just report it, or dislike, and hope the recommendation engine notices).
You can block videos and channels in Youtube Kids: https://support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/7178746?hl=en
It also blocks a huge amount of content, I just tried searching for Biotechnology related content most of it is not available. I’d guess because it’s not been marked as “targeted at children”.
There’s no way of saving or sharing content.
So, no it’s not a great solution in my opinion. It would be better to introduce these features into the main app.
Since their two age settings are for under 7 and 7-12, that's manifestly false.
Its for children as protected under COPPA, to wit, under 13.
> There’s no way of saving or sharing content
Also because COPPA (at least, the sharing part.)
What I’m saying, is that they should give everyone the ability to more effectively control content in the main app, website.
You absolutely can! Go on the three dot menu next to a video title in the recommendations and click on "do not recommend videos from this channel"
“don’t recommend” and “block” are also different concepts. I’d like the ability to block content so it doesn’t appear at all if searched for, linked etc.
The fact is, YouTube could easily provide much of this functionality. Particularly the ability to block short content. But they’re interested in pushing this content on users.
So, if you accept that children should at least be somewhat monitored/guided in what they watch, this is a problem.
Of course, someone might say that parents should be monitoring the content anyway. That may be true, but doesn’t always happen in practice. And it’s a constant fight against the recommendation engine in any case.
YouTube has become the default way to share video content online, there is no way to “opt out” of the recommendation engine, and they do their best to push low value content at children. So in my view, yes this is a problem.