YouTube cracks down on Elsagate

[Wilfire]

YouTube to clamp down on disturbing kids' videos such as dark Peppa Pig

Site announces measures to flag, review and restrict content that is inappropriate for children but doesn’t breach wider guidelines
YouTube has announced a clampdown on disturbing and inappropriate children’s videos, following accusations that the site enabled “infrastructural violence” through the long-run effects of its content recommendation system.

The new policy, announced on Thursday evening, will see age restrictions apply on content featuring “inappropriate use of family entertainment characters” like unofficial videos depicting Peppa Pig “basically tortured” at the dentist. The company already had a policy that rendered such videos ineligible for advertising revenue, in the hope that doing would reduce the motivation to create them in the first place.

“Earlier this year, we updated our policies to make content featuring inappropriate use of family entertainment characters ineligible for monetisation,” said Juniper Downs, YouTube’s director of policy. “We’re in the process of implementing a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged. Age-restricted content is automatically not allowed in YouTube Kids. The YouTube team is made up of parents who are committed to improving our apps and getting this right.”

Age-restricted videos can’t be seen by users who aren’t logged in, or by those who have entered their age as below 18 on both the site and the app. More importantly, they also don’t show up on YouTube Kids, a separate app aimed at parents who want to let their children under 13 use the site unsupervised.But for the age restrictions to apply, the content does first have to be flagged for review by a normal user. The content is then reviewed by what YouTube says is one of thousands of moderators working around the world.
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YouTube Kids features a greatly restricted subset of videos available on the main site. That subset is not hand curated, however. Instead, it’s selected automatically, YouTube says, using machine learning and algorithms. If something slips through the net, it can again be flagged and reviewed by a specialist YouTube Kids team of moderators. The company says less than 0.005% of videos viewed in the Kids app were removed for being inappropriate in the last 30 days.

The question of what defines “inappropriate” content is still an open one. YouTube says videos that feature adult themes, including graphic violence, will be age restricted. But the company did not detail what exactly the line would be, nor provide examples of previously unrestricted videos which would now be flagged.

On Monday, in a widely-shared article, campaigning technology-focused artist and writer James Bridle detailed the vast industry of low-quality, algorithmically-guided children’s content created for youtube. “Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level,” Bridle wrote.

But as Bridle and others noted, defining what, precisely, renders a video such as “BURIED ALIVE Outdoor Playground Finger Family Song Nursery Rhymes Animation Education Learning Video” disturbing and upsetting in a way that a Tom and Jerry cartoon isn’t is hard, for algorithmic or human moderators.

YouTube says it has been working on the age restriction policy change since before it was accused of infrastructural violence against minors.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...a-pig-children

Common sense finally prevails. But shouldn't feckless parents that treat their kids like garbage and give them iPhones instead of parenting be allowed to walk away scot-free?

[Daedius]

That's great.

These degenerates deliberately targeting kids to unsuitable content disguised as common kids' shows is beyond sick.

[Jofe]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...a-pig-children

Common sense finally prevails. But shouldn't feckless parents that treat their kids like garbage and give them iPhones instead of parenting be allowed to walk away scot-free?

No, they shouldn't, but I don't know if there's a way that doesn't involve government regulations that would overstep the government boundaries.

Also the main reasons I support youtube acting on this is because these videos were able to make money with copyrighted material, meanwhile have 5 seconds of a song on a 15 min video and it gets instantly flagged for using copyrighted material. Youtube at times is extremely inconsistent.
Although I can't avoid to think that they didn't give a shit as long as they got money, but had to act because the topic became common knowledge and couldn't get away with it anymore.

[Independent voter]

Looks like parents find a wholesome video for their kids to watch. So what could go wrong? Well after that video the next video auto runs and it might be wholesome as well but eventually the youtube algorithm will start playing these creepy videos. There are videos of suicide, Elsa from Frozen with nails through her hands, poop on people, people drinking pee, etc.

Some of these videos have gotten over a million views!

The kids aren't proactive, they just let video after video auto play. Parents bare some responsibility.

[Raptor With a Saber]

That's great.

These degenerates deliberately targeting kids to unsuitable content disguised as common kids' shows is beyond sick.

Or they do it because the adults find it funny and its targeting adults but as many other things kids think its for them. Im not talking about stuff that starts off as kids shows and is remade for adults.

[Tico]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...a-pig-children

Common sense finally prevails. But shouldn't feckless parents that treat their kids like garbage and give them iPhones instead of parenting be allowed to walk away scot-free?

They shouldn't.

[Lochton]

To be honest, sounds fair enough. The ones making such content targets it faulty on purpose.

[StayTuned]

Yea

And Happy Tree Friends never happened, so this is all new to the internet. Right?

I mean, come on. As a responsible parent you should monitor your children and their internet usage if they're so young that they'll get disturbed by anything that YouTube leaves up.

This being said... Good on YouTube that they at least try to take over some of that responsibility.

[Wolfbear]

Went down the rabbit hole earlier and watched a bunch of the videos... jesus fucking christ some of them are horrifying.

[OrcsRLame]

Yea

And Happy Tree Friends never happened, so this is all new to the internet. Right?

I mean, come on. As a responsible parent you should monitor your children and their internet usage if they're so young that they'll get disturbed by anything that YouTube leaves up.

This being said... Good on YouTube that they at least try to take over some of that responsibility.

HTF was targeted towards adults. The 'Elsagate' videos were targeted at kids. They were literally being made by bots and manipulating the tag system to target children via the youtube algorithm. Also, some of these videos were actual child porn.

Furthermore, I find it very telling that these videos were monetized, while political videos have generally been deemed "unfriendly to advertisers."

[StayTuned]

HTF was targeted towards adults. The 'Elsagate' videos were targeted at kids. They were literally being made by bots and manipulating the tag system to target children via the youtube algorithm. Also, some of these videos were actual child porn.

Furthermore, I find it very telling that these videos were monetized, while political videos have generally been deemed "unfriendly to advertisers."

Well, what the fuck?

I didn't know.

[Seramore]

gate

stop .

- - - Updated - - -

Yea

And Happy Tree Friends never happened, so this is all new to the internet. Right?

I mean, come on. As a responsible parent you should monitor your children and their internet usage if they're so young that they'll get disturbed by anything that YouTube leaves up.

This being said... Good on YouTube that they at least try to take over some of that responsibility.

Except Happy Tree Friends wasn't targeted nor advertised towards children. I'm pretty sure the site itself had a content warning.

If you're going to make an edgy post like this and reference something, at least know what you're talking about.

[StayTuned]

Except Happy Tree Friends wasn't targeted nor advertised towards children. I'm pretty sure the site itself had a content warning.

If you're going to make an edgy post like this and reference something, at least know what you're talking about.

Wasn't aware of the malice behind it.

It's kind of funny. I looked up some videos now and honestly it's so incredibly bad and stupid that it's funny again.

And then it becomes so horrifying when you actually realize that they maliciously target children by abusing the algorithm.



I guess it just makes it even more important for parents to monitor their children.

[Arrashi]

The real question is - what took them so long ? This shit is fucked up, its like adult swim by without irony and humor. Its just uncanny and disturbing. Its like recordings of LSD orgies or something like that.

[Mister Cheese]

The real question is - what took them so long ?

Because of regardless of what content it is Youtube will always make money off of the ad revenue. These videos make millions of views and that's big money for Youtube. They will always want to dip their hand in the cookie jar no matter how dirty it is. They probably only stopped it now because they realized it's about to reach a sort of breaking point I would assume.

What surprises me more is that Disney didn't do something first. They make no money off these videos and they are potentially damaging to their brand as well.

[Calfredd]

Because of regardless of what content it is Youtube will always make money off of the ad revenue. These videos make millions of views and that's big money for Youtube. They will always want to dip their hand in the cookie jar no matter how dirty it is. They probably only stopped it now because they realized it's about to reach a sort of breaking point I would assume.

The article already said they stopped monetizing them so viewership meant bupkis for a while now.

[Knaar]

I spend most of my days on youtube and never heard of that... damn... youtube is really big

[Mister Cheese]

The article already said they stopped monetizing them so viewership meant bupkis for a while now.

Then it's even more despicable that these people make these videos to just traumatize children.

[Sinyc]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...a-pig-children

Common sense finally prevails. But shouldn't feckless parents that treat their kids like garbage and give them iPhones instead of parenting be allowed to walk away scot-free?

Finally. It's been talked about for months, but YouTube never acknowledged it until Big Name outlets started reporting on it after countless "tips" to look into it. Guess it wasn't going to generate as many clicks as the daily crap that is out there.

[Selastan]

YouTube needs to stop...their website is already punishing to creators as it is. Even if their intent is well, they have a history of fucking things up worse when they try and fix them.

Oh, and can we stop calling every single controversy [Controversy]Gate? Seriously, that's lazy as hell.