Ideas: Parental Control for videos

[abh]

Currently our family uses Spotify. We have teenagers who are too old for the limited content on Spotify Kids, but too young for explicit content. And yet, Spotify now allows video streaming on their platform that does not have the option to be turned off. So kids from 10 to 18 can stream TikTok videos and other content that has been uploaded into Spotify as "podcasts" and the content is not able to be filtered or blocked. 

My idea is that, if Pandora chooses to allow video streaming in the future, to please give parents the option to toggle it off for underage accounts (18 and younger). It would be preferable to have zero video content, as it's a music app, but it seems to be the way all streaming platforms are headed unfortunately. 

[TannerPandora]

Hi @abh 

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your thoughtful feedback with us. We understand how important it is for parents to have flexible options for kids who are in that in-between stage of being too old for kids’ content but not quite ready for unrestricted access.

You’ve also raised an interesting point about video content and parental controls. While Pandora is currently  focused on a music-first experience, we appreciate you sharing your perspective on what might be helpful for families if video streaming were ever considered in the future.

The status of your post has been updated to Open Ideas. Thanks again for being part of the Community and for taking the time to share your ideas with us.

[lka1988]

I am in full agreement with the original poster here. Pandora is the only music streaming service left that hasn't incorporated videos yet; I brought my 20 year old account back from the grave last week specifically because of that. With Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, etc., our teenagers would just sit and watch music videos and tiktoks and whatever else can be found more often than I would like, making it a pain to get them to do chores or homework (not the entire reason, but it didn't help anything).

My wife and I want our kids to have access to all kinds of music, but the simple fact is that the parental "controls" in most streaming apps are little more than "here is a toggle that changes everything to baby music", with no in-between. I have *way* more control with self-hosted apps that pull content from my own library, like Plex and Jellyfin.

I get that the execs and vulture venture capitalists always want to make the imaginary money line keep going up, and advertising revenue based on activity from kids probably helps a lot of that (I don't like it, but this is just the state of things right now, so...🤷).

So... If videos are implemented, PLEASE just give us real parental controls.

[GHXST223]

The way I see it is trial by fire meaning you Pandora devs give the options for music video viewing like your rival Spotify did and don't allow parental controls