For any regular YouTube viewers, it’s hardly news there are thousands of gross videos going up all the time.
Misleading titles and thumbnails, outright lies, misogyny, homophobia, racism… there’s just too much awfulness to keep track of.
But is it too much to ask for the kids’ videos to be kept safe??
Photo: Kindergarten Teacher Cuts Her Hair To Match Students
A pediatrician mom in Florida named Free Hess was shown a video on YouTube Kids last summer which completely shocked her.
According to Hess, in the middle of a cartoon, the video cut to a man in sunglasses who instructed children on how to commit suicide by slitting their wrists. What the eff??
Hess told CNN she and other groups reported the video, which was eventually taken down. After a week.
What’s worse is, the video CAME BACK! Hess says she saw it again this month, on grownup YouTube. And this time it took two days after being flagged to be removed.
According to Hess, YouTube Kids has tons more disturbing content, including “videos glorifying not only suicide but sexual exploitation and abuse, human trafficking, gun violence and domestic violence.”
Eesh!
In response, YouTube said in a statement:
“We appreciate people drawing problematic content to our attention, and make it possible for anyone to flag a video. Flagged videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don’t belong in the app are removed. We’ve also been investing in new controls for parents including the ability to hand pick videos and channels in the app. We are making constant improvements to our systems and recognize there’s more work to do.”
Hess says she wants YouTube to improve their response time — because multiple more days is WAY too long:
“Once someone reports it, it’s too late because a kid has already seen it.”
We aren’t sure if it’s possible for YouTube to screen every video going up on the site, but it seems to us getting some adult, human eyes on at least the children’s videos would help.
What do YOU think??
[Image via YouTube Kids.]
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