YouTube Kids Lets Parents Block Annoying Sing-A-Longs

The Internet is deceptive in some ways. "Enterprising" people always find ways around restrictions to put up content that would otherwise be illicit in some contexts. Take, for example, videos on YouTube that are supposedly kid-friendly. Well, some of them might indeed be great for kids, but not for parents. Ultimately, it will be parental units who decide what their offspring can or cannot watch. And now the YouTube Kids app makes it much easier for moms and dads to filter out those that might not suit their idea of child-friendly fun.

This is less about inappropriate videos getting through YouTube Kids's content curation process and more about parents picking out the ones they might not want their kids to see. That could include videos that teach kids how to do things that parents might personally find disagreeable. Or videos of a song that have been repeated to death already.

The YouTube Kids app makes it simple for parents to block such videos through each video's 3-dot menu. The only requirement is that parents have to sign into the app with their Google account. That's simple enough to do, though they do have to confirm they are a parent through a verification code. Hopefully the little tykes don't have access to mommy's or daddy's e-mail.

YouTube Kids already offers a timer to limit how long kids stay in front of the phone or tablet as well as an age group categorization to make sure only relevant, not to mention interesting, content is shown. The new update is being made available to users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malaysia, Philippines, India, and Singapore.

SOURCE: YouTube