‘Kid-friendly’ search engine softens portrayals of Hamas, Russia, and Iran, report says
The investigation also finds the search engine has no publicly identified founder, owner, or editors.
Kiddle, a search engine marketed as safer for children, presents softened portrayals of Hamas, Russia, and Iran's government while disclosing no editors or owners, according to a Manhattan Institute investigation published in City Journal.
The investigation found that Kiddle's page on Russian President Vladimir Putin describes him as "known for ending the Second Chechen War" and says only that Russia "took control of Crimea" and "supported a war in eastern Ukraine."
Kiddle's Hamas page says the U.S.-designated terrorist group "grew out of an Islamic charity" and that its "fight is with Zionists," using the word "terrorist" only once, near the bottom of the article. The page also describes Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, as a "very important leader,” according to the report.
On Iran, Kiddle describes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, another U.S.-designated terrorist group, as working "to keep the country stable" and describes one leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as someone who "supported Iran's nuclear program for peaceful uses."
The page makes no mention of Iran's 2025-2026 crackdown, during which senior Iranian officials told Time magazine that as many as 30,000 protesters were killed. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency had confirmed at least 7,015 deaths as of Feb. 5, 2026.
On China, the investigation also found that Kiddle omits references to genocide and internment camps from its page on the nation’s Uyghur population. It likewise does not mention that the U.S. House Oversight Committee concluded in December 2024 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a likely origin point of COVID-19.
The site operates behind a privacy proxy, the investigation found. A 2016 EdSurge investigation identified Russian-born entrepreneur Vladislav Golunov, who was previously tied to the search engine Lukol, as a possible creator, though Kiddle's ownership remains unconfirmed.
Kiddle is not affiliated with Google, despite branding that resembles the company's logo and search interface, SlashGear reported, noting that the platform uses Google Custom Search. Common Sense Media rated Kiddle's privacy practices "Warning," citing personalized advertising and third-party data collection.
During testing, the investigation also found advertisements for cybersecurity threat reports and steroid-related supplements, some of which linked to data-collection forms.
Kiddle plans to launch an artificial intelligence platform, kiddle.ai, this month. The investigation reported that Domain Name System (DNS) records show overlap between kiddle.ai and a subdomain referencing DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, though the nature of the relationship remains unclear.
