Recently, people started to catch on to something truly bizarre happening on the YouTube Kids app, which is supposed to present content specifically targeted to kids without any questionable “adult” stuff that parents might not approve of. What it actually has, though, is an endless pit of bizarre nonsense that seems to have come straight out of an Adult Swim nightmare, with pregnant superheroes and unexpected violence. The reason this stuff floats into the kid’s section is because of YouTube’s mysterious and uncompromising algorithm, which was designed to do simple things like keep kids away from unsettling videos about pregnant Spider-Man but actually has a weird habit of digging up unsettling videos about pregnant Spider-Man.
Now, via The Verge, YouTube has shared some information on how it plans to combat this weird situation. Earlier this year, it announced that uploaders will no longer be able to monetize videos that make “inappropriate use of family friendly characters,” and now YouTube will also begin to add age restrictions to videos that have been flagged. That may seem like it should’ve already been in place, but at least this new system will automatically keep videos that seem to be creepy spins on kid-friendly stuff off of the YouTube Kids app.
Meanwhile, YouTube is also trying to clarify that this problem isn’t as big as it seems, telling The Verge that only 0.005 percent of videos on the YouTube Kids app were later flagged by users as inappropriate. Also, while some of this crazy shit seemed to be getting millions of views on the Kids app, those numbers actually took regular YouTube views into account.