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Comment by samwillis | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely no YouTube for our kids, just don’t trust it, not even their kids app. Too many stories of bad content.

Here in the uk we have the joy that is CBeebies and CBBC, so have iPlayer (and all the other kids BBC apps) on iPads for the kids.

The only other one we let them have free reign on is Disney+, I’m sure this will change for the older one soon.

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Wish there was a way to block everything and whitelist allowed channels. There are some really quality ones but there are also a bunch of really creepy content, even in the kids app.

Does the kids app show ads? Aside from the creepy content (which required in-person parental filtering) the advertising was the thing that drove us away from YouTube.

It's fine on a laptop or desktop where you can run an ad blocker. It's not fine when you're trying to let kiddo watch YouTube on an actual TV screen.

Yes, on certain channels. Some channels are ad-free, but this can change over time. A channel that’s ad-free on the YT Kids app today doesn’t have to be ad-free tomorrow.

There’s a paid version of YouTube that doesn’t have ads.

Things my son (2 and a half) likes to watch on YT:

- Lorry trucks (semis/big rigs) driving on the road/motorway

- The tube/trains/subways coming in and out of stations

- Large excavators digging in quarries and loading dump trucks

The videos are usually pretty slow paced and calm, and we're happy to let him watch in small blocks (5-10 mins max) from time to time. He's shown no interest in typical cartoons, kids shows, etc. I'd love to cut off YT completely, but are there other places to get this type of content for him?

I've seen DVDs of some of these.

Don't forget the heaping tablespoon of surveillance.

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