Opinion | How YouTube’s main consumers – young children – are at risk from unsuitable content
- YouTube is not meant for under-13s, but most of its popular channels are aimed at babies, toddlers and young children
- Autoplay algorithms can include unsuitable, mature or racist content along with kids’ videos
To understand just how severe YouTube’s kids problem is, take a look at the popularity charts.
You might expect the No 1 channel on the most popular Google-owned video network to be a brash, foul-mouthed videogamer such as PewDiePie (that was long ago), a new, up-and-coming teen sensation like a Kyle Hanagami or a celebrity heavy tie-in, like music videos from Ariana Grande or footage from the Kardashian sisters.
The No 1, most-viewed YouTube channel in the United States belongs to a team of animators from Irvine, California, that produces weekly animated preschool singalongs, under the Cocomelon brand.
In the past 30 days alone, Cocomelon has pulled in more than 2.5 billion video views, which averages out to 83 million young viewers daily. Combined, the major four TV broadcast networks averaged just 13 million viewers daily during the TV season.
This is a problem? It is when you keep going down the chart and see that six of the top 10 channels are also targeting babies, toddlers and first-time students, with a mix of more nursery rhymes, play dates and toy reviews.
YouTube’s most popular programming targets kids, the same group that’s supposedly not allowed to watch the channel, per Google’s terms of service.