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YouTube Kids 'showed nippers how to make nooses, play with fire'

Complaint to FTC says app facilitates access to violence and pr0n as well

Two advocacy groups have filed an update to their Federal Trade Commission complaint against Google's YouTube Kids app for "false and deceptive marketing", alleging that Google is deceiving parents by marketing YouTube Kids as a safe place for under-fives when they believe the app is "rife" with inappropriate content.

The Youtube Kids app was launched in February. It was designed to allow parental control mechanisms and restrictions on who could upload content.

A review by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) claims to have found "a significant amount of content that would be extremely disturbing and/or potentially harmful for young children to view," and lists:

  • Explicit sexual language presented amidst cartoon animation
  • Videos that model unsafe behaviors such as playing with lit matches, shooting a nail gun, juggling knives, tasting battery acid, and making a noose
  • A profanity-laced parody of the film Casino featuring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street
  • Graphic adult discussions about family violence, pornography, and child suicide
  • Jokes about paedophilia and drug use
  • Advertising for alcohol products

CDD and CCFC also note that they provided a video to the FTC today which they believe document an array of inappropriate content that can found on YouTube Kids.

"Federal law prevents companies from making deceptive claims that mislead consumers," said Aaron Mackey, the coalition's attorney at Georgetown Law's Institute for Public Representation. "Google promised parents that YouTube Kids would deliver appropriate content for children, but it has failed to fulfil its promise. Parents rightfully feel deceived by YouTube Kids."

The complaint alleges: "Parents who download the app are likely to expose their children to the very content they believed they would avoid by using the preschool version of YouTube. In addition to the unfair and deceptive marketing practices we identified in our initial request for an investigation, it is clear that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of their screening processes and the content on YouTube Kids."

Josh Golin, Associate Director of CCFC, says that "In the rush to expand its advertising empire to preschoolers, Google has made promises about the content on YouTube Kids that it is incapable of keeping."

Golin, speaking "as a parent" announces he was "shocked to discover that an app that Google claims is safe for young children to explore includes so much inappropriate content from the Wild West of YouTube."

The letter of May 19 updates the complaint of April 7, which said the YouTube Kids app featured ads and other marketing material that took advantage of children’s developmental vulnerabilities.

A CDD press release said its previous complaint also noted that the "blending of children’s programming content with advertising material on television has long been prohibited because it is unfair and deceptive to children. The fact that children are viewing the videos on a tablet or smart phone screen instead of on a television screen does not make it any less unfair and deceptive."

When asked for comment, a YouTube spokesperson said: "We work to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family-friendly as possible and take feedback very seriously. We appreciate people drawing problematic content to our attention, and make it possible for anyone to flag a video. Flagged videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don't belong in the app are removed." ®

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