YouTube Kids to add new parental controls

The YouTube Kids app is to introduce new parental controls following reports of inappropriate content appearing in the service.

The video platform has said it will roll out three new parental control options over the course of this year designed to “improve the app experience for kids and families around the world”.

“One area of focus has been building new features that give parents even more control around the content available in the YouTube Kids app so they can make the right choice for their unique family and for each child within their family,” the site said in a blog post.

The first of the new features will see new collections of trusted channels across different subjects. The collections of channels will be verified by the YouTube Kids team, with parents able to select only the channel collections and topics they want their children to access from within the app’s settings.

Finally, the app is also upgrading its search-off control, which already enables parents to turn off a child’s ability to search for videos.

An update to it will now mean that should a parent tun off search, children will only be able to access channels that have been verified by the YouTube Kids team – the app will not offer recommendations.

The app has been criticised on several occasions after inappropriate videos were found on the service – the service has admitted it still has work to do and called on users to help it moderate content.

“While no system is perfect, we continue to fine-tune, rigorously test and improve our filters for this more open version of our app. And, as always, we encourage parents to block and flag videos for review that they don’t think should be in the YouTube Kids app. This makes YouTube Kids better for everyone,” the blog post said.

“It is our hope that these additional options will allow every family to have the experience they want in the YouTube Kids app.”