Android & Chill
One of the web’s longest-running tech columns, Android & Chill is your Saturday discussion of Android, Google, and all things tech.
Starting December 10, Google is set to log out anyone in Australia under the age of 16 from their YouTube account. This is due to the country’s new social media ban, which no longer exempts Google’s widely popular video service.
Who is right? Can YouTube be “bad for kids”?
Government overreach meets Google greed
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this is not a fight any government and tech company should be having. It’s not their responsibility to tell you and me how to raise our kids unless we’re doing something wrong enough to break the law.
The Australian government is caving to the demands of a few loud voices in an attempt to become more popular and boost some politicians’ reelection chances. I imagine most parents think the government should let them take the wheel when it comes to raising their kids, rather than telling them that Junior isn’t allowed to upload Minecraft videos once he’s finished his homework.
Google doesn’t want anyone — child or not — to have any difficulty having a YouTube account. Even if they can’t monetise kids directly, those numbers are a big deal in meetings with advertisers like Coca-Cola who want their video ads seen by a bajillion eyeballs. For them, it’s all about the money, and they provided enough parental controls to meet both parental and government demands.
That doesn’t answer the question, though; can YouTube be harmful for kids?
Of course it can be.
I think YouTube has plenty of problems, but I love the service and use it every day. According to my year-end review from Google, I use it more than 80% of people do. I’ve seen plenty of great things, but I’ve also seen some pure garbage. If you use the service, you can say the same: YouTube is full of content that kids have no business seeing.
We might disagree on what that content is. For example, I don’t care if my kids watched a video with foul language because I know what they hear in school, and that they probably use at least half of those words when I’m not in earshot. I don’t like the idea of them learning how to make a homemade pipe bomb, though, because I think most kids are stupid enough to believe they can try it and not get hurt or hurt anyone else, not that they want to become militant terrorists.
The point is that we each can decide what our kids see and how often they see it if we want to. Letting the government decide what content is age-restricted and then blocking access to it is lazy parenting. That’s exactly what the Australian government is trying to do here.
Google saying “Hey, we have parental controls that give you an automated way to let a screen raise your kids” is not any better. Allowing software algorithms to decide on content that meets your criteria is equally lazy. Use them, but don’t rely on them because your 13-year-old kid is smarter than you when it comes to the internet. They’re smarter than Australia’s Communications Minister and maybe even smarter than the programmers at YouTube.
They will find an easy way to see whatever they want to see when you’re not there. There is nothing you, the government, or Google can do to stop it.
Talk to your damn kids
YouTube and Amazon Prime Video have great content for young children and actually have a good system to silo it away from the rest of everything and present it to them. If you have little ones in your house, and a way for them to see it, let them do it once in a while; they’ll love it.
When they get a little older, everything changes. Raising kids is the hardest thing you will ever do, and you will make plenty of mistakes along the way. Chances are you’ll do OK in the long run, though.
You can’t be there every waking second of a teenager’s life. When you’re not there, you have to trust that they will make the right choices for themselves. Sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t. If you have teenagers of your own, think back to what it was like for you and how you made decisions. Scary, isn’t it?
Chances are, your teenagers will try some weed or drink some beer. They’re going to curse sometimes. They’re also going to see things on social media that you disagree with, whether it be on Instagram, Twitch, or YouTube.
What you need to do is try your hardest to teach them your values and hope some of it takes. Do that by treating them respectfully and just talking to them. Spend time together doing both things you like and things they want to do. Putting up with the skibidi toilet 67676767 nonsense phase is worth it because they will outgrow it. When your kids feel they are treated as people, they’ll act like people. Most of the time.
Don’t let Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells or Google CEO Sundar Pichai make the decisions about what’s best for your family. I believe both have the best intentions, but they are your kids.
And your responsibility.