What Kagi or anyone could work on, is an actually working version of YouTube Kids.
I literally Pi-Hole Blocked all of YouTube after my son started reading the Bible after a Minecraft Influencer started preaching throughout most of his videos to the point my son became a bit too much interested in the topic.
Not that I'm a rabid atheist or would deny my child such a thing, but if THAT can enter my 8yr olds brain via his short allowed time where he can browse by himself, i'm worried what else is coming his way through it.
I'd love to give him access to valuable videos between rules I describe by natural language and can test myself, but nothing like this exists.
I had a lot of frustrations with the Youtube Kids app until I realized that if, when setting it up, rather than choosing the appropriate age range, you picked the "custom" (or whatever it was, it was annoyingly hidden all the way to the right, so you can't even see it at first), you are able to white list channels and videos, rather than just blacklist. Why this feature is hidden behind a different age selector rather than being part of any of the age settings I do not understand, but it's a lot better, and it could prevent the issue you describe, although admittedly it does require more work on the parents part to find and approve appropriate content. This is easier for younger kids at least.
wait is this real?
this is a thing ive been wanting, some channels that are fine are not in ytkids and some of the stuff in ytkids is just junk
if we could curate a whitelist that would be perfect
I think you can only whitelist channels that are approved kids channels, not from the full youtube library, but it does allow you to avoid the ocean of crap and pick just the good stuff.
It is a very hidden feature though. You have to link your kids account to yours, and then in the Youtube mobile app (not on the web), you can click the three dots button and then share > "with kids"
So that way you can build up a whitelist of channels that they can see in the YT kids account.
Why not curate a video repository? I think novelty is actually overrated and even harmful for kid. Deeper exploration on familiar subject may be beneficial as that would let his/her imagination to take on the job of inventing new things.
I did this. I set up a plex server in my home that connects to a NAS which has the full runs of every PBS style kids show that I could find and found good reviews of. Along with classic movies.
Just trying to recreate the media conditions of my youth, with modern content as well as long as it’s “pure”.
I’m also putting me-vetted YouTube content like Kurzgesagt on it.
You might want to vet your video collection more closely. Kurzgesagt got into hot water a few years ago after it came out that they were being sponsored by large corporations to push messaging that used those sponsors' publications as primary sources. They're not as unpartial and objective as they lead people to believe
Trying to look into this now, and can't seem to find the issue. Is the complaint that they used Our World in Data [0] while they got money from the Gates Foundation? If so, I don't understand what the problem is; it seems to me as objective a source as can be. Or is there something more shady there that I haven't found?
They're not as partial and biased as people like to believe.
When you read kurzgesagt's reasoned response, and you consider the motivations of the primary accuser, it's a lot less dramatic than you make it sound. Nobody's perfect; and sometimes organisations' messaging align without it being bought. They are not primarily funded by billionaires, they have editorial independence enforced by contract, and have a lot to lose if that's not the case. Of course, make up your own mind (as kurzgesagt would like you to do); but I'll still be watching their work. If in doubt, check with other sources afterwards! (Like you should anyway).
No need for manual ytdlp! I use TubeArchivist[1] to download channels and then share them with kid's account on Plex. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Great self-hosted solution.
If it’s just the ads that are the issue, paying for YouTube premium would be a similar cost solution, and funnel some money to good creators.
Towards a better Jellyfin solution, I wonder if adding Whisper and an LLM model could transcribe the YT videos and flag any which contains themes that go against parents values.
I found that most of the content on YouTube kids existed as a means to advertise products. I don't necessarily care to understand the economics of it because it just doesn't provide enough value to bother.
What I do understand is that I don't want my kids being tricked into watching ads because something about watching adults open toys is entertaining.
May I ask how are you dealing with the hole Youtube left in his life? I grew up on the internet, but seeing the effects it had on me and the world I don't want the same for my kids. The problem is I don't even know what to do in my own free time if not browsing Youtube or playing games, imagine a kid.
My advice would be hobbies. Learning and practicing stuff can take a lot of your free time if you’re passionate about it, meaning you give it your full attention.
Maybe I'm weird, but hobbies just feel like work anyways, except maybe reading. Learning Japanese just doesn't have the same feedback loop as grinding Dota or something... Alas, how would I tackle this issue with a kid? Maybe just throw a bunch of activities at him and see what sticks as a hobby?
Yeah that works. I've done piano, jujitsu, hockey, and half a dozen other things with my kid. If they ask to do something I let them, but make them do a commitment. If they hate it, they can stop when the season is over and try something else. The tricky part is to balance ensuring they learn not to quit just because something is hard, with not making them do something for too long that they've just figured out is not for them. Piano and gymnastics were a big no, while they fell in love with the right jujitsu gym.
Not everything has to be competitive or official either. Like you can just go to the community pool during the summer without joining a swim team. I think some parents forget this, but this was normal for previous generations.
So my kid has a few extra curricular activities and then I also do plenty of activities with them at the house like play chess or card games or whatever. They're also watching some of my old favorite sci-fi shows with me. Nearly all of YouTube kids is steaming garbage designed to turn your kid into a mindless consumer. Netflix kids is pretty good though. There are a lot of shows that have character progression and multi season plot arcs that cover complex subjects. Avatar the Last Airbender is an example of a show I was comfortable with my 7 year old watching without worrying about brain rot. Mind you, I think all screen time needs a limit.
by teaching them that work is good and necessary. There's a book by Neil Postman Amusing Ourselves to Death, the central idea of which is that "form excludes content". The problem with Youtube, or in his time TV, isn't just the content, it's that all content by the nature of the medium must be entertaining. If it isn't entertaining, it isn't content.
Hobbies feel like work because they are like work, because most things worth doing have a component of work to them. Rather than just trying to see what sticks, the best thing you can teach kids these days is that they should stick to the thing and that expecting "fun" at all times is a bad expectation to have.
Also there's a period when you're going to feel terrible if you're focusing too much on the result, when you know enough to judge the quality, but not practiced enough to do it well. That's when positive feedback is important, either by reducing expectations (just doing it for fun), focusing on relative progress instead of absolute qualifications, and mental care. A social element works wonder for these.
But sometimes you're just tired, right? I get working on a hobby project on the weekends, but I can't fathom working on anything after a 10-12 hour workday
As a fellow parent and hater of YouTube Kids, I've thought about building a replacement.
What holds me back is knowing that -- if this was an iPad app, for example -- I'd be at the mercy of both Google AND Apple. It's a minefield of sensitive topics:
Church-goer son-of-a-pastor die-hard-reformed christian here in agreement...
sorry there are too many whackos out there. I'd feel more comfortable with my kids learning from Catholic Priests than some random youtuber. In fact, my kids are probably going to go to catholic school.
The reason why we have denominations in part is to maintain the education of the clergy and keep dogma, or theology, in check.
(even if we disagree at times, at least most of the organized christian church can agree on the basic creeds - something that youtube seems hell bent on for clicks is getting you into nontrinitarian and whacky stuff!)
For my 3yo, I have setup YouTube kids but with only approved content. He gets to see only selected channels or videos. YouTube with search enabled for kids isn't as walled as one might expect.
I stumbled on this some time ago and saved it for when my kid grows up enough. It is a collection of a few thousands kid friendly videos. I think their curation is pretty good, but check it out for yourself.
My son watches this YouTuber, it's Eystreem. My guess is that he uses the Bible as a prop to add drama to his videos. Another video he was marketing Prime energy drinks. Maybe I should download a whole bunch of 80's TV shows line A-team or Macyver, and only have that available to watch
They have their stuff and, I’m not sure how to word it, but like affiliated channels or other channels within their “network” - such Ryan Trayhan (my spelling is off there)
Shocking at this may seem, it is your job as a parent to protect your kid and not expect a platform to do it for you. It's not that hard to limit kids' screen time and control the content. A simple yt-dlp cron job with Jellyfin would work fine.
To add to this, YouTube Kids is an entirely different beast altogether depending on if it’s on a touch screen your kid can control, vs on a TV where you have the remote.
I feel a lot of people talk terribly about YouTube Kids because they’re imagining you just hand them a tablet with the app, let them pick what they want to watch, and walk away. And then the kid finds some super suspect videos and gets brainwashed or something.
But here I am letting my 2 and 4 year olds watch Miss Rachel and Super Simple Songs and Big Block Singsong and the occasional Elmo’s World on the TV, while I’m in the room, and people on this forum would call me a monster for doing this… it’s really wild.
This is not a new development; HN has been discussing this issue since it became apparent that the content did not meet the expected standards. The situation changed when Google made an effort to implement a whitelist channel feature.
> to ensure children are not exposed to harmful content.
Strong claim. I like the idea, but wish they were more realistic about what they can provide. If you ever get a Reddit result you're likely one click away from harmful content.
That said, I like the lenses applied in this case. It may be the best we can get today in terms of search filtering.
Or they head to Wikipedia, search for "fish" and end up on the Albert Fish page.
I think aiming for better rather than perfect is the best option, as you said. As long as it's framed in this way, and not as an ideal option to let your impressionable child loose on the internet.
I get it, but that wasn't the point. There's lots of sites which will have your result and harmful content right next to each other. Reddit is known for being a collection of very unrelated subreddits, but you won't know every site like that. Kagi writes "ensures", but they can't really ensure anything here. They'll have the best guess of the first click being safe and even that is often problematic (what kind of safe?, for what age?).
I've moved from NextDNS to ControlD. NextDNS seems like it's been abandoned--good luck getting any level of support--and I've been really happy with the feature set of ControlD.
Disclaimer: I am a happy paid Kagi subscriber and absolutely am an advocate of their product. I really hope the company makes it work financially because we NEED something like it.
I have two young kids of my own (4, almost 2) and have so far been able to avoid the issues of letting them free roam on the net, but it's obviously something that's coming. This was not something I ever paid attention to in my youth but now as a parent the open internet completely terrifies me. And I say that as a core millennial that basically grew up with the internet.
The current status quo of "kids friendly" content (eg YouTube Kids) is mostly awful. I would still never let my young kids browse something like that without supervision.
I am appreciative that Kagi knows this is an issue and is investing into the area.
Feels like in my youth the biggest risk was stumbling on some freaky gore/porn that scarred you, but somehow that doesn't seem as bad as the risk of getting hooked on dopamine-optimized brainrot, alt-right propaganda, or micro transaction focused games.
I couldn't agree more, this pretty much describes me in my youth. I am legitimately terrified of what would have happened to me had I had access to some/certain alt-right influencers, I know for a fact that a younger me would have easily fallen into that mess. I get why it's appealing (at least to a certain person in a certain headspace).
I'm so glad the worst I feel like I ran into were freaky gore/porn.
Yep, that's exactly my fear. The brain rot zombification of our society. How do I stop my kids from getting suckered into an endless scrolling doom loop?
Pretty much every parent I know does not allow their preteens and younger unsupervised tablet/phone use because the internet is so bad for them at that age. Typically they allow a curated set of content during specific times, and devices are physically removed from the children's environment afterward.
I love Kagi and I think the basic ideas here are a step in the right direction. I would really like to see the curation be social so I can share and collaborate with friends and my kids school. As it is I help my kid use an EOL Chromebook to find Origami designs but it is always side-by-side and I have tight NextDNS controls to keep weird weird ads away from my kids.
On this topic I have been drafting and collecting thoughts on internet and digital media curation the last few nights. Here is what I have so far:
Thesis: The role of children's teachers and caretakers in curating an environment for children to learn and grow is more important than ever with the overwhelming variety of books, videos, shows, etc all of varying quality and alignment with caretaker and child interests. However, curation in the digital age is also more difficult than ever. The web is a collection of walled gardens which give parents limited and inconsistent controls over what the child will see once inside the walled garden. And, adding controls on-top of a walled garden is impossible or only possible by very computer savvy users (e.g. YouTube frontends).
What are ways care takers can practically and easily curate today?
"Our young students are just beginning to develop their powers of discernment. By curating a good library collection, we can help them learn to weigh the merits of a few authoritative works on a subject rather than plowing through hundreds of internet sources of uneven quality. And while a computer search is undeniably efficient, we firmly believe that browsing a shelf of books is more rewarding and more educational. It deepens students' understanding of organizational principles, brings them unexpected discoveries, and rewards patient exploration rather than offering instant gratification"
> Family Plan … We strive to provide a search engine that prioritizes the well-being of your loved ones, particularly the most vulnerable ones like children, by offering an ad-free and safe browsing experience. We offer two different group plans based on your specific needs.
I read it a few times and saw only one plan. What’s the second one? If it’s the Team plan, that seems like poor copy.
Lol...i see why kids are shunning "online"... The internet was exciting as a kid (for me) back in the nineties specifically because it was the wild west: unique takes, mp3s, software torrents, private p2p chats with strangers around the world, porn, and most importantly...something my parents had no clue about.
In 2025, id definately prefer kicking dirt as a kid.
Im very aware of the commercialisation of the internet. Sadly its something (tablets) given to children as a high tech dummy, more than it is a wierd and wonderful playground.
I couldn't find that either. But did find myself laughing at the "always check this with an adult" disclaimer on the quick answers. It's nice to imagine an alternate world where being an adult is sufficient for proper critical thinking.
Content for kids strikes me as something you'd curate around an experience and value system you sell to parents. I can't imagine anything else would work very well.
Granted, this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to build filters. I'm just rather pessimistic about a hands-off experience with such software.
I think curation is the key. I sort of trust Disney to curate content for my kids. I definitely do not trust Youtube to do it.
I don't want my kids to be able to "discover" content. Why is that always the feature? Rhetorical question....I know the answer, engagement and stickiness. I just don't like the answer.
When I was a kid on 56k myself, the consensus was that their internet usage was monitored by adult eyes. Did curated libraries or content filtering step up to the mark?
I literally Pi-Hole Blocked all of YouTube after my son started reading the Bible after a Minecraft Influencer started preaching throughout most of his videos to the point my son became a bit too much interested in the topic.
Not that I'm a rabid atheist or would deny my child such a thing, but if THAT can enter my 8yr olds brain via his short allowed time where he can browse by himself, i'm worried what else is coming his way through it.
I'd love to give him access to valuable videos between rules I describe by natural language and can test myself, but nothing like this exists.