Why Disney+ Parents Are Fuming After Hulu Merger

Some parents on social media feel they have less control over the content their children watch with The Disney Bundle.

By Michael Hein

The Disney Bundle allows families to combine Disney+ and Hulu in one simple app, but parents are finding it has some drawbacks when it comes to age restrictions. Disney+ has prioritized "family friendliness," making it easy for parents to ensure their children only see age-appropriate content. Now that some Hulu content is visible within the Disney+ interface, this system is not as reliable.

It has been a long and winding road for Disney as it entered the streaming space, acquired Hulu, and tried to configure the best combination of bundles possible. At the time of this writing, the result is "The Disney Bundle" – a selection of five subscription plans that combine Disney+, Hulu and, if desired, ESPN+. Starting on March 27, subscribers with the Disney Bundle in the U.S. now see a Hulu content hub in their app. The intent was to tie the brands together more closely and to mimic the successful interfaces in other countries, but some commenters feel it has weakened the age restriction system.

Post by @sparkliestemily
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A Threads user named sparkliestemily started up a conversation on this topic last week, saying that their children love to watch Disney productions, but are not allowed to watch YouTube streamers. While the Disney+ app previously made it easy to draw that line, the addition of Hulu means that "kid YouTube streamers" are "lumped in" with the rest of the content for their demographic. They added: "And since it's all rated for the lowest age, we can't block any of it."

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Speaking with other users, sparkliestemily specified that the content is still "age appropriate" by some standards – just not for her family in particular. For example, they said: "Diana Show is targeted at kids but it's awful from what I've seen... That's not the kind of content I want to expose my little ones to."

Disney's online help center has an FAQ about parental controls, but it's true that it only allows parents to toggle their children in and out of "Junior Mode," or to set their profile to block content with certain ratings. It does not allow parents to block certain types of content or specific titles altogether. The site also reads: "Hulu content available via Disney+ will reflect the Disney+ profile's Content Ratings. The Content Rating can always be adjusted as desired by following the above steps."

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