SLAMMING!
2017 has been a crazy year for YouTube. And it’s only getting worse.
Parents are suddenly finding really inappropriate material on the YouTube Kids app. Which isn’t really much of a surprise, if you’re a fan of H3H3:
Long story short: YouTube algorithms are a woefully ineffective way of weeding out content that’s inappropriate for children. But basically, certain people have figured out how to both duck copyright laws and YouTube’s algorithm in one fell swoop, while making money off of inattentive parents.
The Walt Disney Corporation is clearly going to love finding out about these.
A lot of this garbage involves Spider-Man and Elsa, for some reason. Probably because both are popular with kids. And this situation is only going to keep happening until they have an actual vetting process for things to be considered Child friendly. You know, one that involves an actual person making sure that the damned videos don’t involve demonic possession and suicide.
It’s in the goddamn title, YouTube Algorithm! I’m pretty sure trained chimps could do a better job!
It probably doesn’t help that YouTube’s been doing its damndest to screw over content creators for the past few years. But this is the most preventable; a bit of common sense would get their report numbers down to zero. PBS didn’t just run whatever crap someone sent in on a VHS. Assuming that high tech shit is going to be good enough to keep this from happening is pretty stupid. Not to say parents are free from blame; this is the “sit them in front of the TV with whatever on” approach taken to its logical extreme.
You know, because letting your children watch shit like baby butt syringe videos is something a parent just wouldn’t know to veto.
Bottom Line
Don’t trust other people or things to do all the work for you. That goes for both YouTube and parents. This entire situation is preventable with just a little effort.
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