Over the past couple of years YouTube has been heavily criticized for how it targets children. With personalized ads being shown on videos aimed at children, a big chunk of YouTube’s revenue seemed to be coming from data it had collected from children using the platform. It took a 170 million dollar settlement after being sued by the FTC for YouTube to stop showing personalized ads on content intended for children, as well as regulating content aimed at children a lot more heavily.
This lead to the creation of YouTube kids, a platform that has a curated selection of content that is meant for kids and kids alone. However, YouTube Kids has been criticized for having a poor algorithm that lets some truly disturbing content slip through the cracks, and since parents might leave their kids unsupervised while they use YouTube kids these children might be exposed to this highly disturbing content that the algorithm is letting in.
It turns out that YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki doesn’t let her own kids use YouTube all that much. While YouTube might want you to think that YouTube Kids is perfectly safe for all your children, the company’s CEO doesn’t seem to think that this level of safety is enough for her own kids. Apparently she really restricts their use of YouTube Kids, allowing them only a few hours of usage per week.
This is a common thread running throughout big tech CEOs. Google’s Sundar Pichai doesn’t let his eleven year old child own a smartphone, and Snapchat’s CEO really restricts his kid’s screen time as well. This means that tech CEOs know how bad technology can be for children. Hence, you shouldn’t listen to claims that tech is perfectly safe for kids. The industry’s own CEOs don’t seem to agree with this notion.
Read next: YouTube CEO continues to stand by its search engine's recommendation system – despite the ongoing criticism
This lead to the creation of YouTube kids, a platform that has a curated selection of content that is meant for kids and kids alone. However, YouTube Kids has been criticized for having a poor algorithm that lets some truly disturbing content slip through the cracks, and since parents might leave their kids unsupervised while they use YouTube kids these children might be exposed to this highly disturbing content that the algorithm is letting in.
It turns out that YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki doesn’t let her own kids use YouTube all that much. While YouTube might want you to think that YouTube Kids is perfectly safe for all your children, the company’s CEO doesn’t seem to think that this level of safety is enough for her own kids. Apparently she really restricts their use of YouTube Kids, allowing them only a few hours of usage per week.
This is a common thread running throughout big tech CEOs. Google’s Sundar Pichai doesn’t let his eleven year old child own a smartphone, and Snapchat’s CEO really restricts his kid’s screen time as well. This means that tech CEOs know how bad technology can be for children. Hence, you shouldn’t listen to claims that tech is perfectly safe for kids. The industry’s own CEOs don’t seem to agree with this notion.
Read next: YouTube CEO continues to stand by its search engine's recommendation system – despite the ongoing criticism
