Paramount Plus has just made some great improvements for children. Speaking to The Verge, the streamer’s executive vice president Dan Reich explained that its library of Nickelodeon shows is the second biggest “content draw” for the service. And that means the streamer wants to make its kids selection as attractive as possible – and to make it appeal to parents as the safe space the likes of YouTube most definitely aren’t.
It’s easy to make jokes about censorious parents but having seen some of the content my youngest’s peers are seeing and sharing it’s very clear that lots of kids are seeing content they shouldn’t, and it’s a nagging worry for me: it just isn’t possible to supervise slightly older kids all the time, but you don’t want them to have unfettered access to everything. And the changes Paramount Plus has made seem very worthwhile to me.
What’s changing for Paramount Plus’s kids’ accounts?
Paramount has changed the profile creation section, the age restrictions and the user interface too. It’s now easier to set up children’s profiles and toggle on Kids Mode, and that’s now been supplemented with a new Younger Kids option that can limit shows to ones rated TV-Y and G but not older. There is also an Older Kids option that ups the allowed age rating to PG. Whichever option you use, Paramount says it won’t be collecting personal data from your kids’ accounts, and it won’t be offering personalized recommendations to under-sevens.
The interface will be different for younger kids, with much larger icons and much fewer words to reflect the reading ability of little ones. And autoplay is turned off for all kids’ profiles.
These changes are already live, but more may be coming: as Reich explained, the profile creation section is likely to get more tweaks later this year and the streamer may also offer (safe) AI-generated playlists of kid-friendly content.
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