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by platetone 3144 days ago
My kids get to learn about living with HIV almost every time we watch Peppa Pig with a 3+ minute long commercial of monologues with people suffering from HIV. Also one time we got an American conservative extremist group video ad railing against transgender rights. And violent video game ads all the time.

I signed up for YouTube Red for a free month of no commercials and it was great. I'm wondering if maybe YouTube is doing this to nudge parents into signing up for their premium service to avoids disturbing ads during kid viewing time. $10/month really isn't that bad and I'm considering just having it part my monthly digital fee schedule.

2 comments

Maybe get a VPN to a small country.

As an English speaker in Denmark, half the adverts I see on YouTube are from the same company, offering English writing review. Others are either luxury cars or in Danish (broadband, holidays). I don't think it would be Denmark's style to have an HIV thing on YouTube.

We can be pretty aggressive with that kind of thing too. Remember "ulandskalenderen" on TV?

For those who don't know, it was a TV documentary series that would air everyday between the 1st and 24th of december, and would typically follow a child worker in the 3rd world. Boys working in mines. It was shown during the kids programming on national TV. I distinctly remember the story of a young girl who weaved carpets for a living and was about to loose her job because her boss thought her new born baby took too much of her time - a baby he was the father of!

I too feel like their violent ads (Australian WorkSafe ads are the stuff of nightmares for a child) are a way to force me to subscribe to Red. And that's even with YouTube for kids.