After Elsagate first appeared on the then-a year old YouTube Kids app in 2016, it was deemed too violent and scary for kids, so the videos went on the news, so YouTube started terminating kids' channels they thought were inappropriate and in 2019, started COPPA, which started in 2000, and removed all comments on kids' videos and the ability to add them to playlists, though one can add them to their own playlists elsewhere.

It's 2025 now, and YouTube has added two widgets  to kids' videos: "Try YouTube Kids: An App Made Just for Kids" and "Choices for Families: Explore Simpler, Safer Experiences for Kids and Families." These two, especially the latter, even appear on non-kid friendly videos! What I want to highlight is how these widgets are affecting kid friendly shows from the 1990s and 2000s.

First off, YouTube is claiming the stuff on their kids' app is better for kids than the shows for their age range that their parents and older siblings grew up watching. As a children's television connoisseur, and one who's seen or at least heard of every one ever in existence, I want to claim that this is infinitely false, YouTube Kids videos are either inappropriate, with their low quality animated videos of kid-friendly characters getting killed or injured, or causing harm to a child’s brain, with their quick cuts, too-bright colors, and overt and inane lyrics. Studies have even showed that channels like Cocomelon are impacting negatively instead of positively, for those reasons.

This goes to show you how far YouTube has fallen. The site wasn’t even for kids, to begin with!

There are so many people who want to comment on videos of their childhood shows, sharing their memories or pointing out little details, or add them on playlists, to either watch and remember their childhoods or show them to their own children, but the horrible business decisions over at YouTube are preventing them from doing so. I believe this is going too far and COPPA has ran its course, so it’s time to add the comments and ability to add videos to playlists back to YouTube videos in place of the "YouTube Kids videos are far better for kids than everything else" widget for the reasons I just mentioned. Together, let’s make a difference, introduce our own kids to the shows we watched when we were their age, and teach the YouTube corporates a lesson!

Links:

• A petition I made to cancel BabyBus' Sheriff Labrador, with a link to a list of shows I'd recommend over it
• I made two editorials about why the traditional children's television show is better than videos for kids, one for Medium and one for DeviantArt.

If you signed this petition already, thank you.