Meta & YouTube in trouble, Nepal's rapper PM and Man's 'Old' Best Friend

Social Media Addiction Lawsuit, Nepal’s Rapper PM, and Amazing Animal Stories | Takaro Kids

In this episode of Takaro Kids, the hosts cover several stories from around the world, starting with a landmark U.S. lawsuit in which a 20-year-old woman claims YouTube and Meta platforms were designed to be addictive and harm her mental health, with the companies planning to appeal and wider debates growing about banning social media for children. They then discuss Nepal’s new 35-year-old Prime Minister Balendra Shah, a structural engineer and rapper whose political music gained massive YouTube views during youth-led protests. The episode also shares science news suggesting humans and domesticated dogs have had a relationship for about 15,000 years based on dog remains found in England and Turkey, and a rescue story of a humpback whale freed from a sandbank in Germany. A quiz asks viewers to identify the movie “Free Willy.”

00:00 Cold Open Intro
00:05 Landmark Social Media Lawsuit
03:00 How Apps Hook Kids
06:06 Nepal Rapper Prime Minister
08:35 Dogs Domesticated Earlier
11:16 Whale Rescue in Germany
14:44 Weekly Quiz Free Willy
17:06 Last Week Winner Wrap Up

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Transcript

Kiran 0:03

Mics camera. Action. It is time for yet another episode of Takaro Kids. We are here to give you a quick understanding of what's happening around the world, and, uh, we have two or three different stories to cover this time. Right, Debbie?

Debkanya 0:19

That's right. We have two, three different different stories from around the world. We didn't want to talk about that war that's going on in Iran still. There's lots still going on there.

Kiran 0:28

still going on.

Debkanya 0:29

It's still going on. And we are keeping an eye on that. But for this episode we thought we'll talk about something different. Something else. Something really, really important and something that all of us. You know, it impacts all of us, people listening here. Kiran, you as well as for me because we have kids. This particular story is from the US and it is about Meta and YouTube. These are meta owns Instagram YouTube as well.

Kiran 0:54

owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, all of that.

Debkanya 0:58

And it's a very, very important, lawsuit that was actually filed against these companies. It was by a 20-year-old woman who basically started using YouTube when she was just, I think six years old, and she started using Instagram and she was around nine years old. And basically the whole thing was that. She claims that these platforms have been designed to make, social media so, so addictive that it affected her mental health and made her very sick.

Kiran 1:26

She's obviously won the case and that's why it's become a big thing because it is for the first time ever that social media companies have been found guilty of causing addiction,

Debkanya 1:38

Yeah.

Kiran 1:39

right? Very often you would think about addiction and, you know, the cases in the past have been about addiction to things like cigarettes and different kind of drugs and, you know, medicines and those kind of things. But social media, it's the first time ever. I think it's very interesting because we are seeing a lot of countries, states, uh, different parts of the world thinking about banning social media for children, fundamentally because of this fear that it's gonna, you know, disrupt the way they think it's gonna cause them a lot of anxiety. So it's a very landmark ruling. It's a landmark ruling because it's never happened before. First time ever and meta and, you know, YouTube or slash Google who owns, uh, YouTube or other. Alphabet, which is the company that owns Google and YouTube and all of them. They both said that they will be appealing the verdict. So they will be going back to court and saying, Hey, this doesn't make sense, because just this one case win basically means that else can potentially file a lawsuit against these companies, right? Saying, Hey, you got me addicted. You got my children addicted. You got so and so addicted, and that kind of becomes a big, big sort of problem for these companies.

Debkanya 2:50

I think while it could open up the floodgates in terms of more lawsuits against them, with more people claiming that, you know, they were harmed or hurt because they got so addicted to these platforms. What I hope they will do is fix the system. Because we know, and the, I think one of the things, one of the, the way they built this case, they found internal documents where they were talking about how can we get more people onto our platform? How can we get more young people? Tweens, like you know, before they're teenagers, really young kids onto our platform and keep them there, right? They have built it in that way. There are scientists and researchers studying the human mind and human behavior and trying to figure out, Hey, how do I keep you here? So, which is why when your parents are telling you get off the screen, it's really hard for you and it's hard for us too. It's hard for us adults to look away from the screen.

Kiran 3:40

right? There's

Debkanya 3:40

Yeah.

Kiran 3:41

of addiction. How long will you be scrolling on Instagram or on Facebook or on, you know, whatever it may be. I think that kind of becomes the big problem that you want to address over here. Like you said, these companies are also creating these apps with specific features which make you want to go further and further. Few years ago, Instagram or Facebook, I'm not a big Facebook u uh, you know, user. But on Instagram for example, It used to be photos. Suddenly a couple of years ago it started moving to videos, and videos became the big thing. And now if you scroll Instagram, you will see just video after video, very little video, uh, photos

Debkanya 4:24

Yeah.

Kiran 4:24

videos are more addictive. It keeps you engaged, it keeps moving. Um,

Debkanya 4:30

It auto plays even on YouTube. Yeah,

Kiran 4:34

Yeah.

Debkanya 4:34

so these are,

Kiran 4:35

the science in which is perhaps. great for the company because they get more use users, they get more usage.

Debkanya 4:42

they can feed you more ads.

Kiran 4:44

They can exactly get more revenue from advertising. Uh, but what does it do for our brain and especially for the young brain, how does it stimulate overstimulate that that kind of becomes the question? So it's, it's an interesting case. It's an interesting win, which is crazy. I would've never expected it. But, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure, because think their whole point is also the fact that, hey. We have this platform. No one asked you as a 9-year-old to come in, you know, get onto it. That's their thought process as well. But that's just an easy way

Debkanya 5:18

But ultimately you do want a 9-year-old, and if you want young people on your platform, then you have to make sure that the platform is safe, right? I think that's the responsibility then comes down to that. If you can spend a lot of money on making people stay on your platform, can you also make it safe? I think that's, That's an important debate to have in this, this case in particular, this judgment has, encouraged more and more people to debate and talk about how this can be made safe or a lot of, like you said, countries are talking about it. Karnataka, for example, has talked about it. I know Maharashtra is also talking about, you know. Having a conversation about whether we should ban social media for young people or not. People below the age of 13 or not, uh, or actually 16 even. So, yeah, I think this is good. Um, everything that we consume, we need to be careful about,

Kiran 6:05

On.

Debkanya 6:06

On that note, I have to talk about another story, which is connected to social media. Believe it or not, it's about a new leader who's elected right next door in a country called Nepal, which is to the north, right? You know where Nepal is? Just look at the India map. You look at the top, exactly Northeast, and you will find Nepal right there.

Kiran 6:28

very often, most people, you know, misunderstand or are not sure, they think that Mount Everest is in India, but it's not. It's actually in Nepal.

Debkanya 6:39

Yes, that's right. Nepal is home to the tallest mountain in the world. And Nepal's new Prime Minister is also very, very interesting character. His name is Balendra Shah, he's only 35 years old, so he's Nepal the youngest Prime Minister. Right.

Kiran 6:54

young. He's younger than me.

Debkanya 6:56

Yeah, I, a lot of people are younger than us Kiran, and a lot of people are younger than us, but yes. So that is one thing. And also he's got a very special skill. He is a rapper. He's a rap artist.

Kiran 7:10

So cool. He was actually a structural engineer, so his education was in engineering. He rose to fame as a rap artist, and then he joined politics. In fact, a lot of his rap songs were very political. I think there's one anthem in particular, which became really big, right in Nepal.

Debkanya 7:30

Yeah, exactly. I mean that's, that's what I was talking about. His, rise to fame and success is linked to YouTube, believe it or not, because there was one song. So Nepal had a lot of protests going on. We've talked about this in the past actually. There were a lot of youth led. Protests in the country, because they were not happy with the way the government was running things. They were not happy with the fact that there was a lot of corruption and young people were not getting the opportunities that they should be. So this one particular song called Nepal Haseko, which is, which means Nepal Smiling, got 11 million YouTube views during this time when these protests were going on and actually made him like the figurehead or the leader, uh, you know, kind of propelled him to become the leader of this entire youth led protest movement. And

Kiran 8:15

Yep.

Debkanya 8:15

that, slowly, slowly his, you know, people, he started becoming more and more popular. And today he's now the prime minister of the country.

Kiran 8:24

That's pretty awesome. A

Debkanya 8:25

cool.

Kiran 8:25

A rapper prime minister. Imagine his, uh, speeches. They'd

Debkanya 8:28

Yeah. He's using his skills for, for the greater good one, one can hope.

Kiran 8:34

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

Debkanya 8:35

Now we are going to go onto another story completely pivoting away from politics and YouTube This story particularly is interesting because it's science, but it's got everything to do with dogs.

Kiran 8:47

Doggies. And I think we've always known doggies as man's best friend, we've always assumed that, uh, you know, they were tamed and became our best friend's. I don't know what, a thousand years ago or something like that. Was that what the original assumption was? But no.

Debkanya 9:06

people used to think 10,000 years ago, okay, let's, let's put it like that. People thought the dog, the dogs became man's best friends 10,000 years ago. But now latest evidence is found that it was actually 5,000 years even before that. So 15,000 years ago. Yes,

Kiran 9:23

they were man's best friend,

Debkanya 9:25

exactly.

Kiran 9:26

This relationship has been 15,000 years in the making

Debkanya 9:28

No wonder it No wonder it's so special, right? No wonder your dog, if you have a dog, if you know dogs and met them, then they know you so well, right? They look into your eyes and you think that they know your whole story and they can understand you so well. That's because they have had like over the years perfected that art. They've been a man's best friend. Now, this particular, how did, how did they, how did they find this out? Well, they basically, there were a lot of scientists from 17 different institutions. Okay. So a lot of people working very hard to figure this story out as well. And they basically found remains of dogs in a place in England as well as a place in Turkey where they found dog bones. People used to believe that, you know, maybe it was wolves, um, that were, you know, behaving like man's best friend back many, many years ago. But it turns out domesticated dogs. Dogs are not the same as wolves. They come from wolves, but they're different. These domesticated dogs, which are closer to today's boxers, or if you've heard of a breed called Saluki, right? They exist today. So these domesticated dogs are closer to the modern da pets that we have than they are to the wolves of, prehistoric times.

Kiran 10:36

So dogs are 15,000 years ago, when was our relationship with cats? I wonder because even like the Egyptians and you know, we

Debkanya 10:44

Yeah.

Kiran 10:45

dating many thousands of years again with mummies and pharaohs and all that. Cats were like their biggest sort of, pet. So it'll be interesting. Maybe y'all can find out and let us know when did the human cat relationship. Start dog relationship. Started 15,000 years ago. Who first?

Debkanya 11:07

I think that's, or or let's reframe it. When did cats domesticate us humans? Because I think that that's the way cats usually treat their human friends. Right.

Kiran 11:16

Sticking to, you know animals and the animal kingdom. There was another very cool story that happened just a couple of days ago, which I thought will be very cool to cover, is, there's, there was a whale in a small, little coastal city of Germany that got stuck on a sand bank and, uh, I'm sure many of you have seen this. You go into a, you know, into a beach town. There's the ocean, there is the waves coming to you at the beach, but then you look a little further ahead and you'll suddenly see sand, there's a small little patch of sand suddenly after you see the waves. This humpback whale came in, got stuck on the sandbank, was stuck over there for a while. They first spotted it on, uh, you know, Monday, which was on the 23rd of March. Obviously then people started coming together trying to see how they could free the humpback whale. Um, and this humpback whale is about 40 to 50 feet long.

Debkanya 12:20

Wow, that's huge

Kiran 12:22

we,

Debkanya 12:22

and heavy, I'm sure as well.

Kiran 12:24

and super heavy, most of us are, you know, between five feet and six feet. So this is 10 of us. Like, that's how long it is and, you know, that's how big it is. They tried freeing it. There were people who actually started creating a ridge so that, you know, it could kind of flow through the ridge. Almost like a water slide, if you can think about it, right? Like a water slide from the sand bank into the deeper waters. there were

Debkanya 12:48

Yep.

Kiran 12:48

that were deployed on Thursday to dredge that channel, uh, into deeper waters. And then finally by Thursday evening, the humpback kind of managed to wiggle itself and move and get strength back and then kind of get out. That's a two or three days, which is pretty crazy for, a

Debkanya 13:10

That is, that is in fact it's very, very dangerous for, for whales to get stuck, um, on the beach because, you know, whales are water creatures. They need to be in the water. If they get stuck for too long, they often die because of dehydration or, you know, their blowhole gets, you know, so you know how whales breathe. They breathe through their blowhole. If the blowhole gets covered with sand or with water and they cannot wiggle and they cannot swim away, a lot of things can happen if the whale is stuck. You cannot just push a whale back into the ocean. Like we said, they're too heavy, too big. Uh, as much as you can try, you will not be able to budge the whale.

Kiran 13:46

But it's still not out of, you know, danger because it has to get into the big open Baltic sea into the wider Baltic sea. So they actually have a couple of boats. Coast Guard boats escorting this, uh, whale now. And, uh, they tried fitting a tracker its skin, but because it was in such a bad condition, um, after having been baked in the sun maybe for like two or three days, they couldn't do that. And uh, in fact, they also saw that there was a piece of netting apparently lodged in its mouth. So again, not the best, uh, state it's in, but actually very glad that he finally escaped.

Debkanya 14:24

This reminds me of a book that I don't know many of you might have read or might not have read. It's a very cute book written by Julia Donaldson called The Snail and the Whale. If you've read it, uh, let us know and let us know what you think of the story. But yeah, it's about a snail who does exactly the same. Yeah. And there's a wheel that gets stuck and the snail saves its life..

Kiran 14:43

Correct.

Debkanya 14:44

note, we are going to move in to our favorite part of the episode, which is our quiz question for this week. And it's connected to the story above that we just told you. The question is, okay, and this might, you might think it's a little unfair because it's kind of before your time, but feel free to ask your parents for the correct answer. In fact, I would urge you definitely ask your parents for this answer. You don't have to look it up. What is that famous movie about a killer whale who was released from captivity back into the ocean by a little boy?

Kiran 15:23

Iconic movie. Iconic movie. I mean, it was, it was such a big movie in the nineties or two thousands. I, I wanna say sometime at that point and, um, you know, also a tear jerker to an extent because you kind of feel for this killer whale who's captured, and then, uh, you know, you, you finally see it go and get free. What are the options, Debbie?

Debkanya 15:49

The options are, and these options were put together by Kiran, by the way, I will just put a disclaimer out there. These are not my choices. This was all Kiran. Option one, is it Free Billy? Option two. Is it Free Willy? Option three, is it Jaws and option four, is it Julia and the whale?

Kiran 16:12

I

Debkanya 16:13

Yeah.

Kiran 16:13

think they're great. They're

Debkanya 16:14

Pleased,

Kiran 16:15

Uh,

Debkanya 16:16

proud of yourself. Good.

Kiran 16:18

uh, please check with your parents if they know what the answer is and they can help you with this. The right answer gets put into a lucky draw. Send in your right answer to takarokids.com or on our Instagram dms with your parents accounts. Ask them to DM us. Don't please take their accounts and do it.

Debkanya 16:38

Stay outta social media if you can.

Kiran 16:40

Stay, stay out of social media if you can. The lucky winner may not be the first person, may not be the last person, may not be the hundredth time that you're sending in the answer. The lucky winner will basically get a gift certificate, and other goodies, so make sure you know what the answer is. Free Billy, Free Willy, Jaws, or Julia and the whale.

Debkanya 17:02

I am waiting to see what the answers are. I hope there are some fun ones there. That brings us to the end of this episode, but we are not going to go without announcing our winner from last week's episode's quiz question. That was also a fun one. It was a very stinky one. It was about a gas that smells like rotten eggs, which gas is this? That really, really stinks. Options were nitrogen, sulfur, Eggelium, and carbon monoxide. And the correct answer is,

Kiran 17:37

No,

Debkanya 17:40

yeah, very good.

Kiran 17:41

The correct answer is sulfur.

Debkanya 17:44

Very good. Sulfur. It is. Then there's a planet that smells like sulfur, that smells of rotten eggs, right? That's the story that we've covered, and the winner for last week's episode is Hrithika Ghosh. She's 10 years old and she's from Pune. Congratulations, Hrithika. Well done.

Kiran 18:02

Your gift certificate and your goodies are gonna get to you fairly soon. So watch out for that and until next week, Figure out the answers. Speak to your parents, what's the name of the movie, and also

Debkanya 18:16

Maybe watch it too.

Kiran 18:17

us maybe watch it too, and tell us who has had a longer relationship with humans, dogs, or cats.

Debkanya 18:26

Yes. I really want to know the answer to that one too.

Kiran 18:30

Bye

Debkanya 18:31

then on that note, bye bye.