Today’s kids are a spoilt lot. They live at a time when “baby on board” stickers and helicopter parenting are the new normal. A time when psychology has declared that spanking is bad for all kids. Also, their homework is a breeze thanks to Kiddle. It doesn’t get any better than this, or does it?
Five years ago, parents would worry that their kids would stumble across something inappropriate when searching online. To solve this problem, a new search engine for children has launched called Kiddle.
Kiddle is a visual search engine specifically designed for kids.
How Kiddle works
We already know how to Google it, but do we know kids Kiddle it?
Kiddle joins other tech companies that have developed products specifically designed for youngsters. This includes Facebook’s messenger for kids and Google’s YouTube Kids.
With Kiddle, results are filtered such that only ‘safe’ sites’ results are shown. The descriptions are written in a simple language for easy understanding.
A notable thing about this search engine is that the thumbnail images are large enough such that kids can easily recognize the results and find what they are looking for. The headlines are also written in a font that can easily be read.
Contrary to popular belief, this search engine was not created by Google. However, it uses it uses the search engine’s ‘safe search mode’, as well as human editors to filter inappropriate content.
Kiddle emphasizes that sites appearing in Kiddle SERPs (search engine results pages) satisfy child and family-friendly requirements. This is done by filtering sites with explicit content.
To test Kiddle’s ability to filter out inappropriate content, I typed “meow meow” into the search bar. The results were quite child-friendly. The search results were mostly on cats, the sounds they make, cat melodies, and excerpts from cat videos. On the other hand, Google presents results on drugs, songs, and people going by that name.
I proceeded to key in the word “sex” and “penis” in the search bar. For both, it returned the message “Oops, try again!”. According to Kiddle, these are bad words! Who knew? But, oh well, we are dealing with kids here.
When I typed the name Miley Cyrus, the search results rendered were quite decent compared to those rendered by Gooogle. We all know that girl has lived! She has, on several occasions, served us with lots of teats, twerking video and butt chicks.
I proceeded to type the word Kim Kardashian and again, there were no results to display. On the other hand, the name Beyonce renders tons of results, both images, and videos.
The policy is that certain celebrity names are filtered since they could lead to adult or racy content being displayed. I guess Mrs. West and her cohorts have not contributed any valuable material suitable for kids. Yet.
On privacy, Kiddle promises that it will not collect any personally identifiable data. This is a bit assuring especially in this age of privacy scandals that have rocked major tech companies including Facebook.
Other ‘bad words’
While some “adult” search words may slip through the safe search filers, Kiddle promises to block bad and explicit search terms.
Here are 5 other search terms that are filtered out:
- Kill
- Porn
- Bitch
- negro
- Prostitute, slut
Is Kiddle really safe?
Ideally, Kiddle is a search engine that is designed to provide safe search results for kids. The site is designed to block profanity and other questionable words from search results.
However, some violent content can still be found depending on the search results, such as those on TV shows or hunters.
Alcohol- or drug-related searches provide factual results that don’t endorse or promote use or abuse. Some search results may lead to sales-based sites and may also feature search-based ads on results pages.
Parents should also know that if they come across any questionable websites, they can submit a request to have Kiddle block them. Users can also request certain keywords be banned.
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