Solved
Why is YouTube Kids not available on Roku?
Every other mainstream streaming device now has YouTube Kids. Why is it not yet on Roku?
- Ask Google. They are responsible for development of the channel
- YouTube's Terms of Service does not allow any other developer to create a YouTube based channel for Roku other than YouTube themselves.
There have been third-party YouTube clients for the Roku in the past and Google/YouTube has demanded that the third-party channel be removed.
Also, the concept of YouTube Kids is not part of the YouTube API. There an API search option to restrict it to "safesearch" mode but that is not really the same. YouTube has no intention of helping third-parties create alternative YouTube Kids applications.
If you are willing to live with the limitation just having a "safe-search," you should be able to do that in the existing YouTube channel for Roku by going to Settings (the gear in the lower-left) and then choosing Restricted Mode.
That all having been said, I find the following statement really alarming:
"However my kids love kids YouTube, my wife and I love it because we feel peace of mind that they will only have kids content."
That is not my understanding of what YouTube Kids actually is. Several of the videos seem to be added to the Kids app using an automated system. If a cartoon looking video includes instructions on how to commit suicide in the middle then YouTube Kids will be "quick" to act on it being reported for abuse. However, a reactionary system is not the same as having *only* kids content.
For more information, read carefully what YouTube Kids has to say themselves about the level of safety at:
https://www.youtube.com/kids/safer-experience/
Notice that they themselves indicate the following:
"But not all videos have been manually reviewed. If you find something inappropriate that we missed, you can flag it for fast review. This makes the app better for everyone."
WHAT?! *IF*? How inappropriate can something be and still get missed?!
The YouTube Kids reactionary after the fact method is not nearly the same as something like HBO Go or HBO Now's Kids section of manually curated content.
Roku's Kids & Family section of the Roku streaming channel store also have other apps that I feel are better curated content that YouTube Kids automated filter such as PBS Kids. There is no *IF* you find something then flag it that is part of the PBS Kids system of doing things.
If having delicate minds view videos on a iPad using YouTube Kids were the video was selected through a flawed automated filter has worked well for you so far, I'm happy for you. I personally don't play Russian roulette regardless of if the gun has 6 chambers or 100 chambers. YouTube Kids doesn't promise the accuracy of their filter is completely 100%. They just claim they work to keep the amount of content that sneaks through to be a low percentage. To me, that low percentage is still a bullet in a gun with a lot of chambers. I would personally get as much peace of mind from YouTube Kids as I would get from watching The Deer Hunter (a movie I also would not recommend for kids). Roku just provides the platform on which the channel apps written for Roku run. The channels themselves create their channel apps, provide them to Roku, and maintain them.
Google, who owns YouTube, has not created a version of their YouTube Kids app to run on Roku that I can find. If you'd like to have a YouTube Kids channel app for Roku, let YouTube know.
