‘YouTube Kids gets variant with only manually selected content’

According to a source from BuzzFeed, YouTube is going to release a variant of its Kids app that only shows content that has been hand-approved by a team from the video giant itself. With this YouTube wants to combat the many malicious circumventions of the Kids algorithm.

The YouTube Kids variant that only shows manually selected content should coexist with the regular Kids app that uses an algorithm to determine which content is suitable for young children, according to BuzzFeed. The problem with the algorithm-driven version is that there are far too many child-unfriendly videos slipping through the cracks. Young viewers are shown videos with conspiracy theories, violence and foul language. YouTube has been working for some time to clean up this branch of its video site.

The option to only manually show whitelisted videos could hit the market in the coming weeks, the BuzzFeed source said. YouTube itself responds to the story by only saying that they never comment on speculation and rumours, but are always working to improve their platform.