YouTube is facing an investigation from the US federal government over its inability to protect children. The Federal Trade Commission in America is investigating YouTube’s data collection practices. The investigation is reportedly in the advanced stage.

Consumer groups and privacy advocates in America brought complaints before the commission. The investigation comes after various complaints about the autoplay and recommendation features on YouTube. They claim that these features allow predators to take advantage of content featuring children.

YouTube and Google executives have been trying to find a solution to the issues around children protection on the platform. They took steps to close comments on the majority of videos that featured children in February 2019. The companies took this measure to prevent inappropriate and predatory comments from spreading on such videos.

YouTube also prohibits minors from live streaming without an adult in the room. Critics also recommend that YouTube stop recommending videos with children. However, the company says this measure could hurt content creators. What they have done instead is to limit the recommendation for videos that they think may put children at risk.

Another solution suggested is to move all children content to YouTube’s kiddie’s app, YouTube Kids. However, this has been proved to not be an adequate measure. That is because it does not mean the app will be inaccessible to predators. There have been situations where people found graphic discussions and explicit language in children content and comments, even on the YouTube Kids app.

Some reports also suggest that children don’t use the kid’s app as much as the main site. They explain that children often move to the main site even before they clock the age of 13.