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Fully agree, responsible parents should not allow their kids (including teenagers) to use Shorts or TikTok. It is a shame that YouTube does not support blocking that crap. It is obvious "Don't be evil" is not Google's motto anymore.

For YouTube, in the case of Shorts, parents can now limit or block them altogether.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/youtube-now-has-a-way-for-...

Can I prevent shorts from showing up for me?

You can create two Google accounts and parental control yourself. You can also use ublock or other browser addons, and of course, NewPipe. Youtube should have more settings for this, it's clearly going down the drain, but it's not like you can do nothing.

Honestly, it's one of the reasons I don't want to pay for Youtube Red, why would I pay for "no ads", when I still feel like I'm the product, because of my complete lack of control over the algorithm and user experience.

> I have no issues with the social media laws as they don't impact my family

This is probably the most common reason for why our society is in the shitters wrt. laws. I find it problematic that people only care after they have been shown they are affected. Look at any anti-privacy laws. No one cares until they get thrown into jail for posting memes online.

Honestly. I am totally unable to understand that mindset, even if I may not actively work against everything because of limitations of time and energy

> Youtube should have voluntarily removed shorts and the front page or made them available as a parental control to appease the regulator.

I honestly don't "get" the hate for YouTube Shorts:

While I clearly do prefer long-form videos on YouTube, in my Shorts feed I see videos that are, well, simply more short-form (admittedly because of the short length they are often more "shallow", but for sure not below some level that I would find annoying or unacceptable (and I think I am fast with such strong judgements)). So, at least judging from my Shorts feed, I can barely see any video that I would consider to be objectionable if I were a parent. It is quite possible that the YouTube algorithm detected very fast that I belong to a demographic that is not interested in particular kinds of videos that are perhaps common on YouTube Shorts and thus simply does not show them to me in my Shorts feed, so I am simply not aware of them.

So, seriously: why the huge hate for YouTube Shorts in particular concerning parenting?

for kids, who are never exposed to youtube. I would assume there is a higher chance of them getting addicted to shorts.

> We had to shift music platform. I know we can replicate a lot of this ...

As far as practical solutions go a cheap VPS and a wireguard connection should let you continue with business as usual. From the perspective of YouTube maybe you moved to NZ or something.

> they used YouTube's addictive algorithms as justification for including them as social media

Did they provide YouTube the option of swapping out those algorithms to be exempted from the new law? It seems like this law was perhaps not a bad idea but the execution poorly thought out.

I won't be chasing an increasingly shitty online experience. I imported chromecasts before they were ever released here and had them connected via vpn to a US vps before services like Netflix went global. The pricing and content were really good value back then. Increasingly the relationship with big companies feels abusive. We are moving more towards self hosting, using physical media and changing lifestyle. Disconnecting isn't so bad.