The Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood have filed a supplement to their Federal Trade Commission complaint against YouTube Kids they say shows the app is not the safe place for kids it is advertised to be.
In April, the groups asked the FTC to investigate the app saying it deceptively blended content and marketing. Now, they are adding that the content it is mixing with the ads is hardly a safe environment.
The groups say they found the following available via the YouTube Kids app: "Explicit sexual language presented amidst cartoon animation [a Family Guy parody of the FCC's indecency crackdown grafted onto another cartoon show]; videos that model unsafe behaviors such as playing with lit matches, shooting a nail gun, juggling knives, tasting battery acid, and making a noose; a profanity-laced parody of the film Casino featuring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street; graphic adult discussions about family violence, pornography and child suicide; jokes about pedophilia and drug use; advertising for alcohol products."
The initial complaint hinged on the argument that mixing marketing and the message in a site targeted to preschoolers was deceptive, which the FTC is empowered to act against. CDD executive director Jeff Chester calls the supplement "icing on the digital cake" that Google misled parents and the FTC has to act.
"Google does not, in fact, 'screen out the videos that make parents nervous' and its representations of YouTube Kids as a safe, child-friendly version of YouTube are deceptive," the groups said.
“We work to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family-friendly as possible and take feedback very seriously,” said a YouTube spokesperson. “Anyone can flag a video and these videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don’t belong in the app are removed. For parents who want a more restricted experience, we recommend that they turn off search.”
