Anyone who hasn鈥檛 checked out children鈥檚 media for a while is in for a shock. Most prominently, the digital diet of YouTube for children can appear strange and pointless. Unboxing videos. Weird animations. Spoofs on favourite characters. And tutorials in just about anything.
Some of the anxiety adults feel about what children watch today is moral panic about social shifts: change is often unnerving, and we look for someone to blame, even if that means criticising children鈥檚 pleasures or parents鈥� supposedly lax standards. But children can survive and, indeed, thrive on narratives that adults find perplexing and irrational.
Far from needing a saccharine diet of safe and cheerful images, children can tap into narrative dissonance and even darkness, and some would argue that they should have the opportunity to do so. If you think about it, previous generations鈥� toddler diet of talking tank engines and rabbits wearing waistcoats was also pretty surreal.
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But there seems to be something more sinister going on that we are right to worry about. There is a over the failure of YouTube to police the content that children see, even on its dedicated channel for them, YouTube Kids. There are some violent and disturbing videos creeping through, partly because any monitoring is largely left to algorithms. or being tortured in the dentist鈥檚 chair, for example.
Worse still, a growing proportion of the content is created deliberately to exploit the virality of the platform, using keywords and bots to amplify reach in a way that is often unaccountable and unedited by humans and so lacking in control.
Malign mash-ups
YouTube has to realise that as it has created a designated channel for kids, it must manage this as if it was a broadcaster with clear age-appropriate parameters, and a process of public accountability. By all means allow an unfiltered zone elsewhere, but give parents a clear choice.
That means something much closer to prepublication editing, rather than YouTube鈥檚 current practice of responding only after problems are flagged up. that for children, YouTube is one of the most problematic sites online: they can be upset by videos showing cruelty to animals, children or vulnerable others, and it is likely that this will be exacerbated if their favourite cartoon characters are involved in malign mash-ups that reach them with little warning of what is coming.
This is a one area where the fear of 鈥渃losing down鈥� the internet simply doesn鈥檛 apply. YouTube maximises profit by allowing maximum publication, which it does by making it free to upload videos. That has created an incredible platform for creativity 鈥� including for young people. But when it makes a public service claim by dedicating a channel towards a vulnerable group, it enters into an area of social contract where citizens have rights and the provider has responsibilities.
Children鈥檚 programming will always be potentially controversial. Quite rightly, as kids are vulnerable to upset and harm. A degree of challenging and creative content-making is always part of a healthy evolution of media. But that should happen consciously and with responsiveness and accountability.
It is time that the online platforms got ahead of this debate before policy-makers panic and impose restrictions themselves.
