I came across the web search engine Kiddle when someone shared it on Facebook and I immediately 'Googled' it to see what this was all about. Kiddle is so new it does not have its own Wikipedia site yet! There are many articles that boast the search engine's pros and strengths, but there are just as many that present the cons and negatives.
Kiddle is was designed specifically for kids and is powered by Google. It is designed to be a safe visual search engine for kids that filter sites with explicit or deceptive content. Since Kiddle results are either handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors or filtered by Google safe search, you know you get kid-oriented results without any explicit content. In case some bad words are present in a search query, the guard robot will block the search. Other features include large thumbnails, large Arial font and privacy. To learn more about Kiddle's kid-friendly features click here.
Kiddle also offers parents and guardians an additional method of protection by offering a keyword blocking form and additional site blocking form.
As with anything new, there are critics of the new feature who believe the engine is controversial and promotes ignorance, not safety. Since many of these articles were published, Kiddle editors have since changed their search results. For example, a search result of 'lesbian' in February yielded no results because the site "cannot guarantee the safety" of such searches. However, when I searched the term this week the results on Kiddle were over 52 million including results from PBS and The Trevor Project.
Takeaway: As a parent, don't rely on software or anything on the Internet to do my job...parenting my children.
