« This is a major disservice to children and parents alike », she said.

At least according to two advocacy groups.

« Far from being a safe place for kids to explore, YouTube Kids is awash with food and beverage marketing that you won’t find on other media platforms for young children« , said CCFC’s Josh Golin.

According to YouTube’s Help page, advertisements for consumable products are « prohibited regardless of nutrition content ». « We also provide parents the ability to turn search off and restrict the YouTube Kids experience to a more limited set of videos ». But the app, which is effectively this generation’s version of TV in terms of its presence in the lives of children, has faced controversy and complaints from consumer advocacy groups, and even U.S. Senators, concerned about the app’s content and its advertising.

The CCFC claims Google is engaged in « harmful, unethical, and irresponsible practices » that target the youngest children.

Specifically, the CCFC and CDD say in one complaint they found evidence that 17 food and beverage manufacturers are violating the pledges they made as members of the above-mentioned health-focused initiative, CFBAI.

The campaign found 47 ads and 11 promotional videos for Coke and Coke Zero on YouTube, which the community believe to be too many for the eyes of children not yet in their marketing demographic.

Numerous violators are big brand names who broke their word about not advertising to kids under 12 years old, including Coca-Cola, Hershey, Nestle, Oreo, Kellogg and many others.

The complaints have called for the investigation of video programmers, food marketers and Google, the owner of YouTube, along with a broad type of examination of advertising of this type of food to children.

This complaint enlarges on the relationship between advertisers and makers of the YouTube videos, highlighting the use of « influencer marketing » in creating the videos. The advocacy groups want the government to investigate how these videos come to be made if companies are attempting to get around policies and agreements meant to keep ads away from kids.

But because those market-oriented videos were uploaded by private channels, they don’t count as the kinds of paid advertising which are excluded from YouTube Kids by policy.

In response to the complaints, YouTube has announced that it will be rolling out updates that aim to improve the features of the app, especially with regards to the filtering of what videos and ads to allow.