Analyzing Ad Exposure and Content in Child-Oriented Videos on YouTube

As a popular choice for video and entertainment streaming, YouTube hosts a large audience, including children, who form a growing proportion of its users. Despite separate "made for kids" labelling and stricter moderation of these videos, inappropriate advertising remains a concern as it threatens the safety of YouTube for young viewers. This paper is the first comparative measurement study that explores how advertisement exposure and content vary across child-oriented videos on YouTube. We do this by conducting a cross-regional advertisement analysis on highly viewed "made for kids" labelled content across a total of ten countries with varying regulation. A second front of comparison is carried out between ad patterns on unlabelled and labelled child-oriented videos. Our analysis reveals that the safety of a child's YouTube experience is shaped significantly by their external environment. There also appears to be lax enforcement of YouTube ad and child protection policies, indicated by the presence of unlabelled child-oriented content with weak ad regulation. We discuss the implications of inappropriate exposure on children and suggest policy and implementation measures to mitigate this threat.