YouTube Kids has found itself in hot water as consumer groups claimed the app designed exclusively for children includes highly inappropriate videos.
In February, the popular video-sharing website, YouTube, released a new app designed exclusively for childre, dubbed YouTube Kids. The app featured parental control and restrictions on who can upload content. YouTube Kids runs on smartphones and tablets.
Despite the fact that it was designed to make surfing on YouTube safer for kids, the app has come under fire for including videos with themes about pedophilia, child abuse, suicide, drug use and alcohol, two consumer groups claim.
The consumer groups unveiled these adult-themed videos hidden among the cartoons, silly songs and science explainers in the mobile app designed specifically for children by Google owned YouTube, according to reports on CNN Money.
Citing the adult-theme and concerned that the videos could be disturbing for kids, the groups have updated a complaint asking the FTC to investigate the app for unfair and deceptive business practices.
The original complaint which was filed in April goes after the video sharing service for including ads mixed with content. The groups were also displeased with the inclusion of unboxing videos, which show people opening new gadgets or toys.
YouTube, on the other hand, has confirmed that any unfitting videos flagged up to it would be removed.
The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy, the two groups, that filed the complaint claimed that they found links to videos with explicit sexual language, along with jokes about pedophilia, pornography and other content that would be extremely disturbing for young children to view, BBC noted.
According to Aaron Mackey, a lawyer who represents the groups, the search engine giant failed to fulfill its promise to parents about delivering appropriate content for children.
A YouTube spokesperson told the BBC said that the video sharing service works to make the videos in YouTube Kids appropriate and as family friendly as possible, and take feedback very seriously. In addition, flagged videos are manually round-the-clock and any videos that don't belong in the app are removed.
Parents, too, can turn off the search function in the app which further limits what content kids can access.
