What is with the “made for kids” bs? I know it’s about COPPA compliance, but I also think YouTube bears some responsibility for how stupid they have made their system.

Basically, any video that is “made for kids” lacks most basic features. You can’t leave comments, you can’t add the video to the playlist. You can’t use the miniplayer in the app, which is a UI feature. Why? Because the people who wrote COPPA are a bunch of boomers who don’t understand the internet.

This would all be fine, because I don’t tend to watch content that is actually for children. But as someone who has helped others upload video to YouTube, I know first hand how easy Google makes it for people to want to click the “made for kids” button even when their content is targeted to the general audience. Basically, people think “well, there’s nothing in this video that is unsafe for children, so I must check the box then” which effectively handicaps anyone watching their video from using the most basic features.

This shit makes me so fucking angry.