Lisa Nandy calls on YouTube and TikTok to promote better content for children | Digital media

The UK culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has written to video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, urging them to promote higher quality educational content for children.

Recent statistics suggest that while children watched an average of two hours of television a day a decade ago, this has since fallen by more than 70%. Instead, children migrated to YouTube, TikTok and other streaming platforms between the ages of four and eight, Nandy said.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the government initially wanted to “open a dialogue” with the platforms, but that she would consider taking action if they did not comply.

Nandy said: “A lot of content made in the UK is very high quality content aimed at children. It helps inform them about the world, it helps with emotional wellbeing and development and it’s also very entertaining.

“What we’re seeing is that more and more kids are moving on to video sharing platforms like YouTube and finding their own content, and it’s often not as high quality as the kind of content public service broadcasters and commercial broadcasters companies produce, and that’s one of the concerns as a government.”

Former BBC presenter Floella Benjamin, who guest edited the programme, described the platforms as a “Wild West”, filled with inappropriate content.

Nandy said that while the government had already strengthened measures to remove content harmful to children, she believed there was “a more profound point” about the quality of content children were consuming.

“There’s something great about YouTube, it’s democratizing, you’ve got these people starting their careers from their bedrooms. But there’s a balance to be struck to make sure kids can find the really good quality content.”

Asked about the 52% drop in funding for children’s TV between 2002 and 2018, Nandy said she did not think investing more in children’s content would help, as evidence suggested the previous government’s Young Audiences Content Fund meant that more content was created but failed to reach children who do not watch TV.

She disagreed with Benjamin’s assessment that children’s television was in crisis because it “really is one of the crown jewels” of Britain, from CBeebies to Peppa Pig. “The government’s job is to support it and help it flourish,” she said, noting that it tended not to be very profitable.

Nandy said she found it “a challenge” to monitor what her nine-year-old son was doing on his iPad, but acknowledged that video-sharing platforms’ filters were “very good” and appreciated that his school had introduced a Newsround habit. in him.

She said she had written to Ofcom to ask the regulator to prioritize children’s TV and consider the challenges as part of the public service review due to report in the summer.

She said it was important for the government to strike the right balance between attracting investment from platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney, without “damaging or displacing unique British content”.

This included striking deals with public service broadcasters that would enable them to get more of their content online while also properly rewarding them for their investment and work, she said.