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Common Sense Media

How would you rate Common Sense Media?
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Italy
1 review
4 helpful votes
Follow rocco b.
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Overprotective
July 7, 2021

Every TV series or game seems to have been reviewed by $#*!s who haven't played or seen it.
My parents don't use it but it's better this way, any reference to sex or blood is considered 18+ and I wonder why.
Sex is perfectly normal just like blood, violence and guns have never made me violent.
With their youtube channel it is even worse they rate any violent game 18+, example: titanfall 2 18+, far cry primal 18+ and any other game that has some blood almost all 18+.
Plague inc was rated 18+ because they thought they were messing with the corona virus but should be informed that the game came out in 2012.
It's ridiculous

Date of experience: July 7, 2021
Texas
1 review
19 helpful votes
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3 free reviews?
February 4, 2021

What a joke. I won't be using this site anymore. IMDb has a decent enough parental guide, and oftentimes is more detailed. In fact, there have been several times where this site's reviews were simply inadequate, leaving out crucial information a parent would want to know. And now they want to lock them behind a paywall? Don't use this site.

Date of experience: February 4, 2021
Virginia
1 review
6 helpful votes
Follow Me N.
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They used to be a good resource but now they are trash. I supposed they must have gotten desperate for money and started selling positive reviews for stuff that is absolute trash that no parent would actually want their kids to watch.
They claim their methodologies are backed by science but all of their sources are special interests, not actual unbiased science and statistical analysis.
Note the movies common sense media loves are all hated by parents and the positive reviews by kids are obviously not actually written by kids.

Date of experience: April 24, 2021
Texas
2 reviews
2 helpful votes
Follow Gregg S.
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I have used this site multiple times. In the language section, does not seem to be on point. I have downloaded another APP called VidAngel. 100 % no issues with language etc.

Date of experience: May 16, 2023
South Africa
1 review
8 helpful votes
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Now a Pay Service
March 27, 2021

I have always enjoyed the reviews of commonsense media. It has been a valuable resource that I could use to discern whether media is suitable for my son. Even if some of the reviews were by "soccer moms" I always found the insights valuable. And best of all it was free!

Was... Was free. Imagine my dismay when I logged on today to get an opinion on a game only to be presented with a notice stating that I have used up my three free reviews and now need to pay to access more content.

A lot of their reviews relied on kids and parents. I am sure that this will have an adverse effect on the quality of the reviews.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the term "Non-profit Organization". Maybe I am alone here.

Ah well, now I am at liberty of my own devices and FPB ratings.

Date of experience: March 27, 2021
Pennsylvania
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Awesome patent site
January 8, 2023

Common Sense is a great site to expose inappropriate content that you do not want your children to see

Date of experience: January 7, 2023
Alabama
2 reviews
5 helpful votes
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I'm pretty mad they're charging for this site now. It has always been free before. There are other ways of monetizing besides alienating your fan base. And as I see here on this site it looks like a lot of people really don't like them that much so they'd better take heed and listen. I'm not one of the people that says you're a Karen if you use this site. I want to know what's in a movie before I let them see it for good reasons. I care about my kids and their mental health, which is definitely affected by what they watch and what games they play. For example if there's a gruesome death I don't need my five year old seeing it. Or if there's a sex scene with nudity I don't need to show that to my teenaged son. I appreciate that there's a site I can go to to find out about these things however now that they're charging I'm going to have to go find another place to find my info. I'm sure there are other sites. So they just lost this loyal customer whi used to send people their way all the time.

Date of experience: February 3, 2021
Washington
1 review
7 helpful votes
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LISTEN! SAYING THE WORD POOP DOESNT MAKE IT 18+ OKAY? SANE PEOPLE KNOW THAT! BUT THE IDIOTS ON COMMONSENCEMEDIA ARE JUST DUMB! LIKE 5 PEOPLE SAID PEPPA PIG SHOULD BE 18 AND UP! AND BEVERLY HILL CHIHUAHUA IS NOT RACIST!

Date of experience: May 14, 2021
Hawaii
1 review
11 helpful votes
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Just read their negative latest review on 'Brian Banks' from Common Sense Media.

These Common sense media critics like Tara McNamara, are total and complete losers. Bashing a great family, faith movie is so wrong in so many ways. Everyone is so sick of Common Sense Media. They're almost like evil Hollywood tribalists in disguise. Pretending to be family-friendly when in fact they're wolves in sheep's clothing.

Are they truly a non-profit? I'd like the Feds to step in and investigate this top to bottom.

Date of experience: August 8, 2019
Australia
1 review
0 helpful votes
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There's not much to say that others haven't said, but they exaggerate violence, value diversity, positive role models, positive messages, and inclusive characters way to much, like there not being a diverse enough role of voice actors for the kung fu panda movies. They also label any popular franchise with too much consumerism. Of course a popular game like Minecraft is going to make things like plushies. For example, they only gave the entire Pokémon series 3 stars because "there's to much consumerism" when the actually series has no marketing, and the actual consumerism comes from outside of the series.

One thing that really made me mad was them praising megamind vs the doom syndicate for making the female characters more intelligent than most males. Thats not something to be proud of, thats just, woke and sexist. Also the fact that you have to pay to look at reviews is stupid. The only redeeming factor is that its funny to see adults complaining about dumb things because thats literally all you will see.
Also any game with even mild blood will be 18+ which is ridiculous. Literally any official review on this website is garbage. And the parents reviews aren't much better either. They are mostly just soccer moms complaining about words like "heck".

Just use the imdb parents guide its free and slightly better, or try kids in mind (It just says things as they are without opinions)

Date of experience: March 11, 2024
Hawaii
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Lara P.
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I read Ms. Schonfeld's review of 'Slamma Jamma' and you can pull your hair out. The film is a beautiful portrayal of a man searching for Christ. She obviously doesn't get it. But why would she? She's never directed or written a film in her entire life. Her gravestone will read: "I'm a movie critic and I'm better than all the directors, writers and producers combined. I'm a movie critic." You laugh. What parent tells their children to someday grow up to be movie critics?

Date of experience: July 30, 2020
Ohio
3 reviews
13 helpful votes
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Missing Information.
March 10, 2019

I'm extremely disappointed with common sense media's review information because they are leaving out so much information from the content they're reviewing it's like they aren't even trying and honestly I'm just as surprised by movie content as I would be if I didn't look up the reviews on common sense media if not more so. In my opinion the only way someone would be happy with common sense media's reviews is if they're a teenager trying to watch movies or other content their parents would rather not allow them to see. As for me I'm big into family friendly content that for the most part won't make anyone uncomfortable so I'll only use IMDb for information from now on.

Date of experience: March 10, 2019
Canada
12 reviews
88 helpful votes
Follow You D.
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It has good reviews and info for parents who are concerned about their children. However, the parent reviews are nothing short of ridiculous. All the top reviews of popular shows are negative, regardless of the content. It appears that the only ones using the public parent reviews are people who are way too overprotective. They are also filled with trolls.

Date of experience: March 30, 2013
California
13 reviews
26 helpful votes
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A site for Parents
June 11, 2021

Common Sense Media is a website for parents who are stuffy on what they say about movies that aren't for kids. Parents will go crazy over movies that are for other ages besides kids despite reading the age rating on each movie.

Date of experience: June 11, 2021
California
1 review
11 helpful votes
Follow TheUltimate A.
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The perfect site for all flat earthers, Karens, soccer moms and anti vaxxers. Use this site if you want to make your kid's childhood misrable, boring and hide them from the fact the world is a cold, cruel, living hell and not sunshine and rainbows.

Date of experience: October 22, 2020
Colorado
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
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Useful for parents
February 9, 2024

I use Common Sense to find out more about the content of a film. Both the more and less positive aspects of a film often aren't apparent on a site like Rotten Tomatoes.

Date of experience: February 9, 2024
Michigan
1 review
14 helpful votes
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Absolutely Bulls**t
July 11, 2021

Common Sense Media has, on multiple occasions, over-rated thing, countless video games rated 17 and 18+ Most of them being rated by a government organization (the ESRB) as E10+ or T. And they straight up lie about content, adding random things to up the age rating to fit their agenda, absolutely bulls**t. Do not use. (Also even though they claim to be a non-profit, they blatantly charge you money to read more than 3 "reviews", and you can even read them again) Again, DO NOT USE.

Date of experience: July 11, 2021
California
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Good data for parents
October 29, 2020

While I don't always agree with the age ranges of the reviews, common sense does a good job of showing why they gave a piece of media the rating. It allows us to make smarter choices for our kids

Date of experience: October 29, 2020
California
80 reviews
218 helpful votes
Follow Jesse R.
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In nearly every situation, Common Sense Media provides well-written yet succinct critiques of movies, games, music, and even websites. Unlike most other "family review" sites, they do not have an extreme Christian bias and will review any movie with an open mind. They give two ratings... one is mostly for parents, which is the recommend age for the movie.

It is very detailed and not just a rating like PG or PG-13... they will specifically explain that one movie is good for 11 and up and another might be 14 and up.

I do have one minor issue with them... they decided to give the website HomestarRunner.com a score of "15+", implying that the site would be inappropriate for anyone under 15. While I do agree with the 4/5 they gave for H*Rs quality... the fact that they think that the Brothers Chaps mostly harmless collection of flash cartoons is only for older teens and adults makes me wonder if they even watched them.

But besides that whiny rant, I actually enjoy using this site to see what they think of things. They can be trusted in most cases.

Date of experience: July 9, 2016
Massachusetts
1 review
8 helpful votes
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CSM is a poorly strung together reviewing site full of misunderstood/unreliable critics that can't review anything correctly regardless of what it is. I personally think it wants parents to be overprotective and overly cautious when it comes to their children on the internet, and that is not right. Please do look at my photos of three different ratings. SpongeBob and Invader Zim were once my childhood. (And Invader Zim has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.) How can they give 2 children's TV shows 3 stars and Borat 2, which is full of sex and crude humor 4 stars? This is B. S. I suppose their very generous rating is 3 stars for most, and if it's out of this world, it's 4 or 5. CSM tries to be as critical as they can in providing their reviews, always inserting some text in the description that gives it a downside, like the repetitive use of "iffy content" in reviews. Parents and all who plan to use this mess of a site, please stand clear of it. You should not believe a word that comes out of the critics' mouths, however, I can assure you that the audience will be more in depth and truthful with their reviews. But that doesn't stop me from staying away from this site.

Date of experience: May 23, 2021

Overview

Common Sense Media has a rating of 1.7 stars from 55 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Common Sense Media most frequently mention and non profit. Common Sense Media ranks 124th among Internet Safety sites.

service
19
value
21
shipping
9
returns
9
quality
22