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Medium - Something is Very Wrong With the Internet (Children's YouTube Channels)
- Thread starter MetroidPrimeRib
- Start date
Everybody who thinks the article is hyperbolic should take an hour or two of their lives and go down the "pregnant frozen Elsa w/ spiderman getting abortion"rabbit hole with a normal Elsa video and see how long it takes you to get to some pretty vile, gross, violent and sexual content.
In on itself disturbing content is nothing new on the internet, I think we all browsed sites like rotten at some point in our edgy teenage years, however the issue with this content isn't that it exists for those who seek it, but as the article points out repeatedly, that the content is being served to children against their or their parents knowledge using computer algorithms, wether this is done with malicious intent or not.
As a sci-fi lover I find the autogeneration of content, exploitation of algorithms on massive scales and the fact that these people doing it virtually become slaves to these machine algorithms to be very fascinating, as a human being however i also find it to be a very scary proposition for thr future, as these things will only become more and more prevalent in our daily lives the further our society and our technology connected.
Terminator was wrong, the computer won't beat mankind with force and war but with emotional and developmental manipulation through algorithms and pregnant Elsa videos.
In on itself disturbing content is nothing new on the internet, I think we all browsed sites like rotten at some point in our edgy teenage years, however the issue with this content isn't that it exists for those who seek it, but as the article points out repeatedly, that the content is being served to children against their or their parents knowledge using computer algorithms, wether this is done with malicious intent or not.
As a sci-fi lover I find the autogeneration of content, exploitation of algorithms on massive scales and the fact that these people doing it virtually become slaves to these machine algorithms to be very fascinating, as a human being however i also find it to be a very scary proposition for thr future, as these things will only become more and more prevalent in our daily lives the further our society and our technology connected.
Terminator was wrong, the computer won't beat mankind with force and war but with emotional and developmental manipulation through algorithms and pregnant Elsa videos.
I think the biggest difference is the age. I was like 11 when I was watching dumb shit on Newgrounds or Ebaumsworld or whatever, but I was at least old enough to realize that what I was watching was fucked up on some level. Kids that are 3 or 4 have zero awareness for this stuff, and these channels are designed to just shovel these videos into their eyeballs
After browsing through a lot of these videos today, you can learn a lot about them from the comments. In that, there almost isn't a single coherent one. A lot of them are probably bots. A lot of them are probably babies mashing the keyboard by accident. There are next to no posts from legit "fans" of the content, because it simply doesn't operate on that level. These are mostly watched by very young, passive viewers who've been fed the video by the 'up next' algorithm, or clicked on impulsively due to some shallow element: Marvel, Disney, something shocking/interesting to untrained eyes.
Push these fucking tech companies to actually curate their shit instead of using easily exploitable algorithms to do it for them.
Not surprised. YouTube has had these problems for at least a decade. They refused to employ a more proactive approach to moderating their site and now they whole thing is a dumpster fire.
I have a little girl of 3 and let her watch some youtube, I usually put her some children songs or cartoon that she likes (peppa pig, masha and mishka, stuff like that) and she always end up watching some really weird stuff with adults that dress as children or pop culture icon. One channel that I hate is some russian kid and their mom (vlad crazy kid I guess), they always end up with huge snickers bars or fighting for an oversize m&m's pack. Putting aside the awful editing, there's always the same sound effect, everything is "wiiz", "pfiiiout", "blang", that's annoying and really stupid.
Videos with "learning colors" in the title are everywhere and are usually some lazy animation with nonsensical thing happening. and sometimes a character says "blue" and that's all the pedagogical thing that is there.
She also felt into an abyss of videos where people have their eyes popped out or gigantic insect attacks them or cartoon characters do awful things to each others (chainsaw seems all the rage)
That's not a generation gap, I lived through all the censored and provocative crap from the 90's, that was not material aimed at young children and there was a certain quality to those things. I'm not overprotective with her, I want her to discover things that push the envelope or are not overly cute, but that needs caution and thoughs, those videos are neither.
Now it's just click bait titles, just for them to appear in the recommendation, poorly made content and really disturbing imagery.
The thing is there is no way to even manually ban certain channels or keyword, i have to closely monitor what she is watching (yes, I know that's my job but she can watch 5 videos in 5 minutes) and I often go through the history to purge all offensive things and empty the recommendation list.
I have discovered this dark universe since I have a kid and it's really astonishing how much exploitative, derivative and disgusting stuff is on there, aimed at the kids. For profit or other nefarious goals, I don't know, I don't care, I want to be able to filter this.
Videos with "learning colors" in the title are everywhere and are usually some lazy animation with nonsensical thing happening. and sometimes a character says "blue" and that's all the pedagogical thing that is there.
She also felt into an abyss of videos where people have their eyes popped out or gigantic insect attacks them or cartoon characters do awful things to each others (chainsaw seems all the rage)
That's not a generation gap, I lived through all the censored and provocative crap from the 90's, that was not material aimed at young children and there was a certain quality to those things. I'm not overprotective with her, I want her to discover things that push the envelope or are not overly cute, but that needs caution and thoughs, those videos are neither.
Now it's just click bait titles, just for them to appear in the recommendation, poorly made content and really disturbing imagery.
The thing is there is no way to even manually ban certain channels or keyword, i have to closely monitor what she is watching (yes, I know that's my job but she can watch 5 videos in 5 minutes) and I often go through the history to purge all offensive things and empty the recommendation list.
I have discovered this dark universe since I have a kid and it's really astonishing how much exploitative, derivative and disgusting stuff is on there, aimed at the kids. For profit or other nefarious goals, I don't know, I don't care, I want to be able to filter this.
This is a fantastic summary of the essay.
It really makes you consider the growing influence artificial intelligence and automation in particular, are having on all aspects of our lives.
It occurs to me that this is another manifestation of the so-called "bubble effect", where modern internet algorithms trap all of us in our own bubbles where we only see what we like, and can't see what other people see online.
Children have traditionally been protected from pure cynical exploitation content by virtue of the fact that what they watch has been scrutinized by the outside world. Now they're in a bubble that the outside world doesn't see and can't critique or censure. You didn't necessarily need to closely monitor what your kids watched on TV, because a million other eyeballs would ensure that it was corralled into reasonably child-safe content. But a child's YT experience is different, because no one else sees what they do, and so society at large can't be aware of it and help to ethically shape it.
The result of this bubble is some of the most blatantly exploitative content directed at children that I have ever seen. Sure, the most blatant of 80s cartoons were trying to sell them toys, tinged with the thrill of cartoon violence, but I don't know of a single moment in the 20th century when children were targeted by mass media with content that was titillatingly sexual or disturbingly graphic violent. You'd almost think children wouldn't be interested in such things..... but it's more that under the light of mass society, targeting children with such things would have been unthinkable in a pre-internet age.
Put children in a bubble that no one knows about, and it turns out that they have to capacity to be attracted by, and people have the capacity to exploit, interest in: needles, pregnancy, dismemberment, sexuality, nudity, and shrill human cries that send chills up our spines.
All we can really do is have a public conversation about this, and inform parents.
Children have traditionally been protected from pure cynical exploitation content by virtue of the fact that what they watch has been scrutinized by the outside world. Now they're in a bubble that the outside world doesn't see and can't critique or censure. You didn't necessarily need to closely monitor what your kids watched on TV, because a million other eyeballs would ensure that it was corralled into reasonably child-safe content. But a child's YT experience is different, because no one else sees what they do, and so society at large can't be aware of it and help to ethically shape it.
The result of this bubble is some of the most blatantly exploitative content directed at children that I have ever seen. Sure, the most blatant of 80s cartoons were trying to sell them toys, tinged with the thrill of cartoon violence, but I don't know of a single moment in the 20th century when children were targeted by mass media with content that was titillatingly sexual or disturbingly graphic violent. You'd almost think children wouldn't be interested in such things..... but it's more that under the light of mass society, targeting children with such things would have been unthinkable in a pre-internet age.
Put children in a bubble that no one knows about, and it turns out that they have to capacity to be attracted by, and people have the capacity to exploit, interest in: needles, pregnancy, dismemberment, sexuality, nudity, and shrill human cries that send chills up our spines.
All we can really do is have a public conversation about this, and inform parents.
Great read, thanks for linking it.
Has anyone been able to track down who actually creates these videos? Just curious how that kind of set up works - because they aren't auto-generating those videos (yet!), are they? There's still someone on a computer somewhere using Premiere Pro/After Effects to create those videos (after having been given a list of hashtags and cash-rich algorithm words).
Must be someone on ERA who's got that job, right? Right?
Has anyone been able to track down who actually creates these videos? Just curious how that kind of set up works - because they aren't auto-generating those videos (yet!), are they? There's still someone on a computer somewhere using Premiere Pro/After Effects to create those videos (after having been given a list of hashtags and cash-rich algorithm words).
Must be someone on ERA who's got that job, right? Right?
The YouTube channel that originally posted the Leeroy Jenkins video got turned into one of these channels. It's unknown whether he got into the business himself or if he sold the channel to one of these shadowy entities.
I'd love to know what the 3d scene software is too. I think they are creating videos out of pre-fab everything: scenes (1. everyone goes swimming, 2. Everyone fights), models (hulk, Spiderman), etc. I imagine someone is sitting there and plugging in scene/skin choices and exporting videos... but they may have automated that process + uploading by now.
And then there are the live action ones which are clearly just making scenes based off what YT keywords are trending (Elsa, Spiderman, joker). As well as elaborately animated ones which certainly aren't made by bots.....
You should be able to create an account for your child that can only view videos from channels you've subscribed to.
I guess sure, anyone will be longterm fine with watching any content.
But I don't think it's the same thing as pre-internet "we found porn in the woods" or early internet "we went to rotten.com or watched Salad Fingers" exposure.
This is a new industry that is targeting extremely early age kids with bizarre and extreme content. We probably should be horrified at this point and try to curb/stop/mitigate this to the best of our ability. I don't think the future generation is broken or anything.... but any degree to which we expect them to be fine is also a world where we have a discussion over this kind of thing and either try to stop it, or try to educate parents and kids about how to deal with it.
I totally agree. Not trying to act like ''children are innocent angels that know nothing'' but I have seen kids that didn't went so school yet, 3 to 5 years old watching these channels. The age is too early to stumble in things like torture, murder, sexual content and so on. I think it is almost a recipe for teens/adults with zero sensibility to these topics and consequently, no empathy.
It looks to be a bit more pervasive that simply walling off the garden will not filter it out.
The promotion algorithm dredges up the click bait along with all the other detritus from the bowels of youtube. That act of being promoted means that it and other similar videos will be further promoted. This feedback loop has caused what is essentially legit content to begin to mirror the garbage and in turn pull more filth up. He did point out some video creators who act out the content of search poison terms in real life. The whole ecosystem is going to be poisoned by this self sustaining loop eventually.
It's quite scary to see the hijacking of children's use of the internet in the same fashion as how adults are targeted when they venture to the less savoury parts of the internet. Many adults fail to see past that nonsense so it's impossible to imagine a child being able to process the manipulation and weirdness as anything other than "I guess that's the way it's meant to work". Yikes.
My nephew was watching some weird action figure stop motion videos voiced by some adult who i only assume is mentally handicaped in some form. It was strange to say the least. There was no plot or anything.
There was no way for me to pry him from youtube without him throwing a fit so i let his mom deal with it. Im one of those uncles thats never around so i felt like it wasnt my place especially if the kid is happy. But i cant imagine the long term effects.
There was no way for me to pry him from youtube without him throwing a fit so i let his mom deal with it. Im one of those uncles thats never around so i felt like it wasnt my place especially if the kid is happy. But i cant imagine the long term effects.
Jesus. This what i imagine kids who shoot up schools watch. This cant be good for a growing brain.
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Im sure it will take them about 3 seconds before finding the logout button.
Some of those videos were deeply disturbing. Something about lazy 3d animation just seems off. It is so empty and lifeless and uncanny that it affects some part of my unconscious. Combined with the violence and creepy laughter and baby cries you have a recipe for traumatization.
I wonder to what extent watching these videos at a young age actually affects children as they grow older. Do they mostly not even realize what they are watching? Or will these videos shape who they are and leave them emotionally scarred or change who they become?
I wonder to what extent watching these videos at a young age actually affects children as they grow older. Do they mostly not even realize what they are watching? Or will these videos shape who they are and leave them emotionally scarred or change who they become?
I could imagine they're using Unity. That way you've got access to mocap and you can simply swap models and scenery.
You can even attach sounds to the ends of actions (i.e. Crying baby) so no need to drag that onto a video editor timeline.
But, in order to fully automate this you'd need some serious coding, no? Might be wrong and Garry's Mod is already able to do that.
Might not even need Unity, could this be made in Garry's Mod (I have no experience with it, hard for me to tell).
Would watch a documentary about the people who have to create this nightmare stuff to cause YouTube PTSD in toddlers.
Things in the article was the reason I just switched to showing Netflix kids to my niece. Tons of good stuff there with no risk for this crap. I will send this to her mother so she can read it too. Automation and machine learning in general is really being used as carelessly as possible.
Am I the only one not creeped out by this? I think some of the material is a bit too graphic for kids but it's just content farming and bots for ad money. I see the issues and do agree it's a problem but this topic has a conspiratorial tone to it which I think is a bit ridiculous.
Disable logout or whatever, I'm sure youtube could figure something out if they gave a fuck
Haha! Yep.
I had to stop that. Kids and adults(!) playing with toys and stuff.
"Why you watching some kid play with his toys? Watch something educational. You know what? Just put the iPad down."
I am ashamed to admit that I let my son fall down a hole of watching these videos.
At first they seemed perfectly harmless but I recently realised just how weird, auto-generated and ultimately intellectually bankrupt they are.
Is there any sort of video playing app for small kids that is safe and curated or able to be shaped by the parent? Really, really, really desperate to know.
Don't bother with "how about you take your kid outside or play with them" responses. We do plenty of that, as well as some more stimulating electronic stuff like ABCMouse and Sago Mini games but it's nice to have a fallback option when he is winding down and needs 30 minutes of being a bit more passive while still feeling like he has some control over the device.
At first they seemed perfectly harmless but I recently realised just how weird, auto-generated and ultimately intellectually bankrupt they are.
Is there any sort of video playing app for small kids that is safe and curated or able to be shaped by the parent? Really, really, really desperate to know.
Don't bother with "how about you take your kid outside or play with them" responses. We do plenty of that, as well as some more stimulating electronic stuff like ABCMouse and Sago Mini games but it's nice to have a fallback option when he is winding down and needs 30 minutes of being a bit more passive while still feeling like he has some control over the device.
why not have him do something else??? You can also go to another site that is curated like pbs kids or something.
Seems like the solution to this is so easy, don't let kids use youtube alone.......
Yeah, my 3.5 yr old used to watch these. He adores Spider-man and these seemed like innocent enough videos, but the weirdness curve was obviously exponential and I have since banned these vids altogether.
I blame these videos if he eventually grows up to be a psycho :/
Yes, my daughter has stumbled on these videos and they are weird/creepy AF. I wish there was a way to block certain videos/channels on youtube but I've never found a way.
Yes it's in the monitization policy. My kids and I actually just started our own toy unboxing, imagination play channel mostly imaginext super hero stuff. One set had Killer Croc in it and the word killer caused it to be demonitized. I just changed it to K Croc and it was monetized again. It's going to be a perpetual algorithm battle.
That was a good article. This stuff is very creepy and disturbing.
This is a great post. Thinking about it, Metal Gear Solid 2 is way more relevant today than back in 2001.
I remember when Retsupurae covered something similar. Really weird stuff all around. Makes me worried about the kind of shit kids must be seeing on auto play.
So let me state this.
1) I have three children with my wife 3, 5, & 7.
2) They all know how to use youtube and enjoy many of the items linked in this article.
3) I really considered this article bunk and alarmist.
Here is my take on this starting with the items listed.
Surprise Eggs: This is a constant struggle in my home. I understand the appeal because it is essentially like Christmas over and over again for children. It's a "surprise" and encourages a "collector" mentality. While my wife and I enjoy collecting items ourselves we have to struggle to emphasize utility as well. This is a parenting issue.
Finger family/nursery rhymes: Both of our sons exhibit autistic and speech delay traits. The compilation videos were actually KEY to helping our children learn to speak. We were told our oldest son would never speak and we should not get our hopes up. We began regular sessions with nursery rhyme and compilation videos where they would memorize the tunes. Eventually the tunes became words, and the words became speech. The compilations are also helpful for evening/bedtime lullabies and naps as the same words are continuously memorized. The repetition combined with the visuals assisted in linking specific phrases and words to images and ideas. To this day we are thankful for their existence.
Now, the less than savory content. This will ALWAYS exist. Rule 32 of the internet ... There is p0#n of it, no exceptions. Period. This included the garbage you see on youtube channels. It's YOUR job as a parent to be vigilant and cognizant of what your children watch.
We have seen them stumble upon these videos before, and one of the ways we ensure transparency is they can only view youtube videos on large screen tvs. Further is we find something questionable we often sit and talk to the children about that topic or even tell thme which viewers they can and cannot watch and why.
I can give examples. At one point my children were really into the "Duck Song" which had 3 different videos. Eventually violent and disgusting videos surfaced as well as linked ones. Upon viewing one while we were all present my wife and i immediately shut it off and sat the kids down to discuss.
Another example is when my kids developed an unhealthy obsession with the OldSpice commercials due to their visual absurdity. While not particularly harmful we decided it was best to talk to them about it.
Anyway the point I'm making is that the idea that the average parents are sitting their kids down in front of a tv for 105+mins to watch nursery rhymes and videos or allowing them to watch that trash available on youtube with regularity. Even the idea that a kid sitting right next to them in a restaurant could be ingesting horrible images without the parent being aware seems to only be a widespread concerns of those who are not parents themselves.
Look there's definitely weird stuff out on the internet. Life is weird. You cannot make a 100% safe bubble no matter how hard you try and you realize this as a parent. Your job is that when less than kosher things are brought in you address it. Its part of parenting. YouTube kids specifically states when you setup the app for the first time that their filter is not bulletproof and that parenting practices are expected. Anyway I'm not particularly sure of the purpose of this article. I will admit 10-15 years ago I would have been equally horrified without a true understanding of the world. But the existence of this stuff doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I would be more surprised if it didn't.
1) I have three children with my wife 3, 5, & 7.
2) They all know how to use youtube and enjoy many of the items linked in this article.
3) I really considered this article bunk and alarmist.
Here is my take on this starting with the items listed.
Surprise Eggs: This is a constant struggle in my home. I understand the appeal because it is essentially like Christmas over and over again for children. It's a "surprise" and encourages a "collector" mentality. While my wife and I enjoy collecting items ourselves we have to struggle to emphasize utility as well. This is a parenting issue.
Finger family/nursery rhymes: Both of our sons exhibit autistic and speech delay traits. The compilation videos were actually KEY to helping our children learn to speak. We were told our oldest son would never speak and we should not get our hopes up. We began regular sessions with nursery rhyme and compilation videos where they would memorize the tunes. Eventually the tunes became words, and the words became speech. The compilations are also helpful for evening/bedtime lullabies and naps as the same words are continuously memorized. The repetition combined with the visuals assisted in linking specific phrases and words to images and ideas. To this day we are thankful for their existence.
Now, the less than savory content. This will ALWAYS exist. Rule 32 of the internet ... There is p0#n of it, no exceptions. Period. This included the garbage you see on youtube channels. It's YOUR job as a parent to be vigilant and cognizant of what your children watch.
We have seen them stumble upon these videos before, and one of the ways we ensure transparency is they can only view youtube videos on large screen tvs. Further is we find something questionable we often sit and talk to the children about that topic or even tell thme which viewers they can and cannot watch and why.
I can give examples. At one point my children were really into the "Duck Song" which had 3 different videos. Eventually violent and disgusting videos surfaced as well as linked ones. Upon viewing one while we were all present my wife and i immediately shut it off and sat the kids down to discuss.
Another example is when my kids developed an unhealthy obsession with the OldSpice commercials due to their visual absurdity. While not particularly harmful we decided it was best to talk to them about it.
Anyway the point I'm making is that the idea that the average parents are sitting their kids down in front of a tv for 105+mins to watch nursery rhymes and videos or allowing them to watch that trash available on youtube with regularity. Even the idea that a kid sitting right next to them in a restaurant could be ingesting horrible images without the parent being aware seems to only be a widespread concerns of those who are not parents themselves.
Look there's definitely weird stuff out on the internet. Life is weird. You cannot make a 100% safe bubble no matter how hard you try and you realize this as a parent. Your job is that when less than kosher things are brought in you address it. Its part of parenting. YouTube kids specifically states when you setup the app for the first time that their filter is not bulletproof and that parenting practices are expected. Anyway I'm not particularly sure of the purpose of this article. I will admit 10-15 years ago I would have been equally horrified without a true understanding of the world. But the existence of this stuff doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I would be more surprised if it didn't.
Fascinating article and a truly shocking dive into how disgustingly low people will stoop to make money. How Google/Youtube tolerates this is unbelievable and I am confused as to how there is barely any moderation in Youtube Kids. Surely Youtube Kids could have a whitelist of video publishers from big companies (Disney, BBC etc.) that will ensure they only produce G rated content for kids. It's blatantly obvious that general public created content is not trusted for adults consumption let alone children. Truly sad and I hope parents are taking note.
boy it's going to be interesting scary when the thousands of bot-generated videos like this eventually merge with the AI generated fake footage of politicians and world leaders speaking https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15957844/ai-fake-video-audio-speech-obama
fake news footage everywhere
fake news footage everywhere
If YouTube isn't willing to curate or moderate the content that can be seen on their kids app, they shouldn't offer the app at all. It's deceptive at best, and it has the potential to be incredibly damaging.
Try the PBS Kids video app. It's 100% curated, educational content
Try the PBS Kids video app. It's 100% curated, educational content
Yeah, my fiance and I recently had to ban her son from viewing YouTube videos without some parental oversight due to these sorts of videos.
I've seen a lot of videos where grown adults act out scenes with Fisher Price Imaginext type figures of popular characters, and they do strange voices and strange scenes. The strangest one I saw was one where Batman was visiting Barbie, and somehow she has chronic diarrhea (I shit you not.) Somehow she ends up not flushing and Batman finds it. It's fucking weird. My seven year old had this in his video history, so I reviewed the entire thing.
https://youtu.be/iT2_ZXUPgJw this is the video, but it looks like the sound has been erased.
Look at this shit, this is what I saw when trying to find the video link:
I don't want my kids falling down the YouTube rabbit hole when trying to watch their favorite characters, or even educational videos. As a parent of two, soon to be three, this sort of content is so exploitive, it's sickening and makes me so upset. I don't want my daughters to have tablets in the future due to shit like this. Not for a long, long time.
I've seen a lot of videos where grown adults act out scenes with Fisher Price Imaginext type figures of popular characters, and they do strange voices and strange scenes. The strangest one I saw was one where Batman was visiting Barbie, and somehow she has chronic diarrhea (I shit you not.) Somehow she ends up not flushing and Batman finds it. It's fucking weird. My seven year old had this in his video history, so I reviewed the entire thing.
https://youtu.be/iT2_ZXUPgJw this is the video, but it looks like the sound has been erased.
Look at this shit, this is what I saw when trying to find the video link:
I don't want my kids falling down the YouTube rabbit hole when trying to watch their favorite characters, or even educational videos. As a parent of two, soon to be three, this sort of content is so exploitive, it's sickening and makes me so upset. I don't want my daughters to have tablets in the future due to shit like this. Not for a long, long time.