Yeah I mean if a parent was always curing the content, it could be useful. But to me that's the same as not letting them have it, you just put on some YouTube videos every so often for them that you choose on your device (we do this now, I just don't allow it on their devices).

When we first let the kids watch YouTube it was on the main TV with it's own account. We have consistently monitored it and actively prune recommendations while slowly introducing them to the concept of "the algorithm". From secondary school they pretty much need YouTube on their own PC's for homework reasons and it's harder to totally lock down - we use the family link controls to limit it a little but if they tried to get around them they could. The hope is we've at least prepared them a little before they have totally unfettered access to the internet.

We did try YouTube kids a little but it was such a garbage experience we just blocked the app everywhere.

Make a new account and see what the suggestions turn into.

This panic again? This shit is weird at best

Parents: don’t let your babies on the Interwebs.

YouTube’s Deliberate Indifference Exposes Anyone to disgusting Content

FTFY

Try using a free online YouTube ripper. You rip the video you need while still denying the kiddos junk tube.

I thought my youngest was all about watching hour long Minecraft playthroughs but really they are quite interested in game mechanics and speed running. They are just a lot more tolerant of watching hours of videos around a particular game.

I don't overly police their content consumption (although we do talk about limiting shorts). The main thing is at the weekend to kick them off the TV after the morning to go and do something more interactive.

Sure if they needed to bypass ads I can introduce them to Free tube or whatever but for all it's sins they need moderated exposure to the YouTube experience so they're equipped enough not to go totally wild when they finally have unfettered access.

The stuff he was watching was more "am I gonna catch Mikey? Mikey is a chicken" kind of stuff. If he was really learning about the mechanics and how to program stuff in Minecraft with redstone or something, I could get behind it. I know Minecraft well enough to know the junk from the good stuff. And he watched probably 10 videos like this every day for more than a year, so I think from those thousands of videos he's learned whatever he would have learned already.

Now instead he is mostly watching chess videos and playing on an app called ChessKid which I'm much more happy with.

That's easy. What about when they get older?

Then you have to set up parenting filters. Firewalls, content filters, read logs, etc.

When they are older I guess you can beg big brother and nanny state to hold their hand.

I wish there was a way to filter youtube. I can block it completely on my firewall, but how do I let my kids watch their piano lesson without getting sucked into something they shouldn't see?

How do I has a parent curate content? I have not found anything that lets me allows the good. Either I block youtube completely, or I get what google decides is good for my kids (which blocks things I find good while allowing the bad)

You either watch it with them, download it for them to play offline (try ClipGrab, its free) or they don't watch it.

Stop begging for censorship. That never ends up good. Accurate tagging of media is what we need and a way to filter that ourselves.

Exactly. The only way is to block it and then choose something on your device whenever you want to show them something, and never let them use it without you choosing the content. The algorithm will always lead them to the darkest bowels of garbage content in my experience.

Seeing TADC in the thumbnail and the "stock footage with scaryvoice" shockumentary intro immediately put me off this video (plus a link to another video from the same person with the same thumbnail but with Minecraft characters; seems like a good racket). So, my two cents:

🪙: The Amazing Digital Circus is a pretty-brilliant psychological horror adult animation. It shouldn't be recommended to little kids, for sure, but it's not "disgusting content."

🪙🪙: There is definitely a problem with the stuff being recommended to kids on YouTube. Google has no real incentive to fix it, of course, but leaving a kid to watch YouTube at random long enough to wander into the really weird shit is kind of on the parents. It's a video service that cares only about serving ads, not a babysitter; either adjust your expectations or stop complaining.

There are plenty of services for only a few dollars a month that are actively safe for kids. Quick DDG found this (and I'm a little dubious about them including the big players like Netflix and Prime, but they also list stuff that looks better): https://thestreamable.com/video-streaming/best-streaming-service-for-kids

Anyway, here's a much better video courtesy of Dan Olson about the weird stuff on YouTube aimed at kids: https://youtu.be/LKp2gikIkD8 (and its only 15 minutes long)

Edit: Missed that you were talking about educational content, so this is more about entertainment, though quite a few of the shows in the linked post touch on social lessons that are, in my opinion at least, also important for kids to learn. Acceptance, open-mindedness, self-expression, that sort of thing.

There's a post I ran across a while back that might be what you're looking for: https://lemmy.world/post/30235633

There are a lot of good shows for kids that age (and the adults watching along with them), they just tend to not be all that well known. There are also a decent number of older cartoons not in that list that are kid-friendly while being just genuinely good art; off the top of my head:

• Samurai Jack
• Invader Zim (if you're ok with its particular style of weirdness, parent discretion advised)
• Courage The Cowardly Dog (also weird, but not as weird as Zim)

Because I'm slightly an animation dork, I'd also personally include Batman The Animated Series and Batman Beyond. Mostly just standard-but-high-quality action cartoons, but both occasionally did some really impressive artistic stuff, especially TAS.