YouTube terminates over 400 channels in response to suspected child exploitation

[DPennington]

In context: YouTube announced that it has banned over 400 channels and deleted "tens of millions" of comments in response to a massive child exploitation ring suspected to exist across the platform. YouTube was forced to act after major advertisers, such as Epic Games and Disney, began pulling advertisements from videos after evidence surfaced of malicious comments and videos being tied to a coordinated effort to exploit children.

YouTube has axed over 400 channels and disabled comments on tens of millions of videos after evidence surfaced suggesting a child exploitation ring was operating on the platform. This comes on the heels of the platform mistakenly banning several Pokemon Go channels over child abuse fears that turned out to be unfounded.

The decision by YouTube was spurred by major advertisers, such as Disney and Nestle, pulling advertising from the platform.

The initial discovery of the child exploitation issue is credited to blogger Mark Watson, who posted a clip demonstrating how comments were being used to timestamp videos containing children performing physical acts such as gymnastics. This behavior was inadvertently reinforced by YouTube, since its algorithm would then suggest similar videos to the user.

News of other major advertisers bailing has begun to trickle in, with Epic Games confirming that it too will stop running pre-roll ads on YouTube.

YouTube was finally prompted to act by content creator Philip DeFranco, who posted a video highlighting the unchecked exploitation and got a response from YouTube. In their response, they stated they disabled the channels and relevant comments, and reported the users making the comments to law enforcement:

UPDATE: @YouTube @YTCreators left a comment and provided an update on what they’ve done to combat horrible people on the site in the last 48 hours.

TLDR: Disabled comments on tens of millions of videos. Terminated over 400 channels. Reported illegal comments to law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/zFHFfkX9FD

— Philip DeFranco (@PhillyD) February 21, 2019

The platform issued an additional statement to Bloomberg, stating:

"Any content — including comments — that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube. We took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling violative comments."

YouTube has promised the companies involved that they will refund all ad spend that appeared on the videos and channels affected by this decision, which amounted to less than $8,000 in total.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78862-youtube-terminates-over-400-channels-response-suspected-child.html

 

[psycros]

Youtube has long gotten a major pass on being a decent web citizen - the comments are famously cancerous and any parent who lets their kid browse Youtube without oversight should be reported to child services. More amazingly, Youtube has been mostly ignored by the RIAA and MPAA. 12 year olds face prosecution and six-figure fines for downloading a Disney cartoon from some nameless site while I can freely watch entire series on Youtube, in HD, with absolutely no permission from the content owners. Perhaps Google is just so big that the only way to get at them is to cry "pedophilia." Its become the trump card for attacking anyone who seems untouchable, such as government employees.

 

[Uncle Al]

I have noticed several channels on Youtube that have suddenly disappeared without so much as a notice or explanation. None of these would have qualified for the aforementioned topic but since this all started a few months ago there have been less general postings, even on the quality channels. No doubt that a bunch of this stuff needs to be taken down but I would expect Youtube to offer an explanation of some kind so you know the channel has been removed ......

 

[Palladium1987]

Can somebody think of the poor multi-hundred-billion corporation who don't have the financial resources to review their uploaders' content on their for-profit video platform? Obviously they need yet another tax cut to run better.

 

[mbrowne5061]

I have noticed several channels on Youtube that have suddenly disappeared without so much as a notice or explanation. None of these would have qualified for the aforementioned topic but since this all started a few months ago there have been less general postings, even on the quality channels. No doubt that a bunch of this stuff needs to be taken down but I would expect Youtube to offer an explanation of some kind so you know the channel has been removed ......

This controversy has been going on in the background for years, but gaining steam lately. Combined with the demonetization, a lot of content creators are simply just closing their channels over the past couple of months. If you weren't one of the 'Chosen' of YouTube, you saw nothing and had no chance of ever making it thanks to the new algorithms they've been deploying that keep people in the same rut of the same videos (usually on the same channels that link and post to one another). Coincidentally, it was these same algorithms that got YouTube in trouble finally.

IMO, Youtube isn't worth the time beyond an occasional short clip.

 

[Danny101]

The FBI should be busy.

 

[captaincranky]

Strangely enough, I've never, (really never), encountered any such content on YouTube. But, I suppose that could be because I've never sought it out.

As far as "copyright infringement goes", there is a lot of material on YouTube which could be considered "infringement", but that material is also someone from the US would likely never encounter.

Here's a home made video with clips from "Wonder Woman", laid over the German symphonic metal band "Within Temptation's", "Iron"

Where I'm at, all I get is profanity and three note bass along with what's going on on "da block" pouring out of the cars at 100 Db.

And yes, I bought their concert DVD and latest album on CD after hearing their material on YouTube.

(Speaking of which, you should have seen the stares I received after I treated my neighbors to the full concert experience).