A study has revealed 95% of YouTube videos targeting children contain ads.
It analysed 1,600 videos and included 191 parents and their children aged below 8 years.
Over half of these videos contained two ads, while a third had three or more.
What was surprising is that at least 20% of the commercials contained inappropriate content.
These included violence, sexuality, drugs and alcohol.
The study was conducted by Common Sense Media at the University of Michigan.
It found children aged below 8 years watched on an average 39 minutes of online content daily.
This was twice as much as in 2017.
25% of the videos they watched contained ads targeting adults.
These included commercials for video games, music videos, vlogs and compilations containing violence.
Some ads even contained doctored versions of popular children’s characters.
The report added YouTube should do more to protect children.
It also suggested moving all children’s content to YouTube Kids platform.
