Common Sense Media is advertised as providing "Trusted ratings created with families in mind".

However, there is an acute political bias and agenda promoted by this website that outranks community contributions and feedback, and that is in direct contrast to the purpose for which this website seems to promote itself.

"Common-sense" as a term assumes that the sense (or consensus) of all community users is the leading source of information generated from the website. This is not the case. Although Parents and Children can contribute to a general survey to determine collective age-ratings and discussion about content, the primary metric presented from the website to the public is based on reviews given by the websites own Reviewers, each of whose opinions appear to outrank all other community members, and whose opinions also appear to be politically biased.

By way of example, are two films that have found themselves at the center of the so-called Culture Wars: Cuties (2020) and Sound of Freedom (2023).

Cuties (2020) is a Netflix coming-of-age film that has been publicly criticised for sexualising and exploiting child actors as young as 11-years old. The film and its potentially harmful practices have been defended by such liberal media outlets as The Rolling Stone, The Washington Post and The Guardian. In the case of Common Sense Media, Cuties is rated a 2-of-5 by 95 parents, a 1-of-5 by 100 "kids" (to use the websites diminutive term) and a 4-of-5 by 1 Common Sense Media Reviewer. The leading metric for this film as found in a web search of this website is 4-of-5 stars: with 195 community reviewer ratings outranked by a single positive review by the website's own reviewer. (Note: according to the websites own rating system, four stars means "Excellent - highly recommended and worth seeking out". Alternatively, the 95 parents rated the film "Disappointing - could have been better and/or has significant flaws" while 100 children rated the film "Don't bother - your time is worth more than this").

Sound of Freedom (2023) is a child trafficking awareness film released by Angel Studios that features a Christian main character and is based on a true story. The film has been publicly attacked by such liberal outlets as The Rolling Stone, The Washington Post and The Guardian. In the case of Common Sense Media, Sound of Freedom is rated a 5-of-5 by 100 parents, a 5-of-5 by 13 children and a 2-of-5 by 1 Common Sense Media Reviewer. The leading metric for this film as found in a web search of this website is 2-of-5 stars: with 113 community reviewer ratings outranked by a single negative review by the website's own reviewer. (Note: according to the websites own rating system, two stars means "Disappointing - could have been better and/or has significant flaws". Alternatively, all 113 community reviewers rated the film "Truly outstanding - the best of what the media has to offer").

The website informs that "Common Sense Media reviewers include writers, editors, and child development experts. They're trained in creating high-quality parenting advice based on best practices in child development". However, the political bias of each of these reviewers, and the website as a whole is not disclosed, but is open to public scrutiny. Furthermore, the website appears to employ 14 general metrics to support the websites mission "to recognize and champion high-quality media". These metrics include: 1) identifying the youngest appropriate age classification for the content (in contrast to the age-classification advertised), 2-11) ten content categories against which the content is rated (including educational value, positive messages and positive role models) and a five-star rating by 12) the websites own endorsed reviewers, 13) parent reviewers and 14) children reviewers (the latter two from the community). Unfortunately, instead of providing transparency about how these different metrics work together and are used to present a cohesive and bias-free community rating, the entire weight of this ratings system leans on metric 12: the subjective opinions of the websites reviewers about whether or not a film is any "good". It is at this point that the websites ratings system collapses, since community reviews have no weighting power compared to website reviewers, which ultimately minimise or directly contradict community parent and children's ratings (as discussed above). (Note: in web searches, reviews are ranked hierarchically, with the websites own "official" reviews appearing top of screen, followed by "Parent reviews" and then "Kid reviews").

What this means is that Common Sense Media functions as a centralised movie and content review platform in the guise of a community review aggregator. It promotes itself as "creating a safe, healthy, and equitable digital world for kids and families" while limiting the voices of those children and families, and promoting its own political leanings, at times in direct contrast to them. Since the website wields power over the voices of the people it claims to support, Common Sense Media has instead positioned itself as a socio-political vehicle used to promote content that is supportive of its own ideology, while attempting to delegitimatize content that does not. Furthermore, it does so under the pretence of being openly supportive of all community voices.

On the face of it, some of the website's tools may be helpful for parents or children looking for quick family-friendly ratings, or a forum to discuss community feedback about content. This will not limit users looking for such features or those whose politics are in alignment. However, because of the lack of political neutrality from this website, and the broad and biased deviation from community reviews in support of leftist political leanings (that intentionally or unintentionally support views and practices that endanger rather than protect children), Common Sense Media cannot rightly be advertised as "trusted", nor can it rightly be advertised as having "families in mind". What it can be advertised as is "biased" and having a "left-wing political agenda in mind".

As such, the position of Common Sense Media as providing "Trusted ratings created with families in mind" is untenable.

Sources:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/our-mission/about-our-ratings
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/cuties
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/sound-of-freedom