Google just stealthily announced in a support page that it's launching a new web version of its YouTube Kids app. The video app is specifically dedicated to children, and thus has faced backlash lately for having some inappropriate content online.
YouTube has since initiated a few safeguards, like letting parents set age brackets for the accounts of their kids using the app. Previously, that meant the vague brackets of "Older than 8" and "Younger than 8." Now, the app offers more granular control. You can now select content for "Preschool" (4 years and younger), "Younger" (5-7), and "Older" (8-12). The assumption is probably that at age 13 you're ready to graduate to real YouTube. In some cases though many adults aren't ready for that, but that's beside the point.
It's also debatable just how effective this will be. After all, there isn't an army of YouTube Kids moderators segregating apps based on these sections. It'll instead be done by the algorithm, which means there will likely be plenty of videos slipping through the cracks.
In theory, according to the published support page, these content categories will focus on different things for different age groups. Preschool kids will be exposed to videos that encourage? "creativity, playfulness, learning, & exploration," and Younger children will get videos that help them "explore their interests and search for a wide variety of topics, including songs, cartoons, crafts, & more."
Older kids meanwhile get "additional music videos, gaming, family vlogs, science, and more". This is basically the core of YouTube, minus all the extra stuff you might come across. All of this in theory obviously. In practice, you as a parent will probably have to worry about too-mature videos creeping into your kid's viewing space. After all, YouTube hasn't had the best track record with removing inappropriate content.
Especially with YouTube Kids, there have been incidents recently where all kinds of videos have been creeping onto the app, encouraging everything from school shootings to bullying, and more. So it might be debatable whether the app is really capable of decisions like whether a video is suitable for a middle school kid but not a preschooler.