The thing about kids is that they don’t know things — they’re neither experienced nor educated — but they’re still pretty smart. And that makes the YouTube Kids platform’s strategy of determining whether it’s dealing with an adult pretty dumb.
Let’s back up for a second. YouTube has a mobile app for kids, and the idea behind it is that there will be guardrails up on the content there. Essentially, the idea is that your child can watch Sesame Street unimpeded and without encountering Sesame Street parody videos or worse. The company has also launched an age-gated website that mimics the app. The age gate is trivial to crack.
To prove to YouTube that you’re an adult, you have to… do a math problem. It’s…