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YouTube Is Addressing Its Massive Child Exploitation Problem
BuzzFeed News ^ | November 22, 2017 | Charlie Warzel

Posted on 11/25/2017 7:18:15 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Across YouTube, an unsettling trend has emerged: Accounts are publishing disturbing and exploitative videos aimed at and starring children in compromising, predatory, or creepy situations — and racking up millions of views.

BuzzFeed News has found a number of videos, many of which appear to originate from eastern Europe, that feature young children, often in revealing clothing, placed in vulnerable scenarios. In many instances, they're restrained with ropes or tape and sometimes crying or in visible distress. In other videos, the children are kidnapped, or made to 'play doctor' with an adult. The videos frequently include gross-out themes like injections, eating feces, or needles. Many come from YouTube 'verified' channels and have tens of millions of views. After BuzzFeed News brought these videos to the attention of YouTube, they were removed.

In recent weeks, YouTube has faced criticism after reports about unsettling animated videos and bizarre content, which were aimed at children using family-friendly characters, and some of which was not caught by YouTube Kids’ filters. All of the videos reviewed by BuzzFeed News were live-action, ostensibly set up by adults and featuring children. Taken together, they make up a vast, disturbing, and wildly popular universe of videos that — until recently — existed unmoderated by the platform.

That appears to be changing. On Tuesday afternoon, BuzzFeed News contacted YouTube regarding a number of verified accounts — each with millions of subscribers — with hundreds of disturbing videos showing children in distress. As of Wednesday morning, all the videos provided by BuzzFeed News, as well as the accounts, were suspended for violating YouTube's rules. YouTube told BuzzFeed News that the deletions were part of a scheduled effort to combat this type of content and that some of the accounts and videos provided by BuzzFeed News were already scheduled to be purged.

"In the last week we terminated over 50 channels and have removed thousands of videos under these guidelines," YouTube said in a statement. All of the videos featured below were still up as of Tuesday evening.

According to YouTube, the deletions are part of a bigger effort to weed out exploitative content on the platform. Last week the company terminated ToyFreaks, a massively popular account run by Greg Chism for videos that bordered on child abuse. The account featured videos of Chism's daughters screaming in fear, bathing, pretending to be babies, spitting up food, being force-fed, and 'peeing.' The account had 8 million followers around the time YouTube shut it down.

In a company blog post Wednesday afternoon, YouTube pledged to address the issue comprehensively by fixing gaps in its enforcement policy. Starting today, the company is purging accounts that — like ToyFreaks — appear to show child endangerment. It is also age-restricting cartoons and animated videos that feature kid-friendly characters engaged in bizarre or adult situations.

The company is also cracking down on advertising on videos that feature family entertainment characters engaged in violence. According to YouTube, the company has removed ads on 3 million of these videos since June. The site also plans a new initiative to disable all comments on any videos featuring children in exploitative situations. According to YouTube, if a video featuring children begins to populate with inappropriate comments, the site will disable the comment thread for that video. The company will also be providing guidance for creators who make family-friendly content in the form of some written instructions. Lastly, the company said it would work with child safety experts to continue to identify troubling trends like this one, which the company allowed to thrive on its platform for years. Many of the offending channels were even verified by YouTube — a process that the company says was done automatically as recently as 2016. The company says it has re-evaluated the verification process to add more human oversight.

Before YouTube removed them, these live-action child exploitation videos were rampant and easy to find. What's more, they were allegedly on YouTube's radar: Matan Uziel — a producer and activist who leads Real Women, Real Stories (a platform for women to recount personal stories of trauma, including rape, sexual assault, and sex trafficking) and who provided BuzzFeed News with more than 20 examples of such videos — told BuzzFeed News that he tried multiple times to bring the videos to YouTube's attention and that no substantive action was taken.

On September 22, Uziel sent an email to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and three other Google employees (as well as FBI agents) expressing his concern about "tens of thousands of videos available on YouTube that we know are crafted to serve as eye candy for perverted, creepy adults, online predators to indulge in their child fantasies." According to the email, which was reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Uziel included multiple screenshots of disturbing videos. Uziel also told BuzzFeed News he addressed the concerns about the videos early this fall in a Google Hangout with two Google communications staffers from the United Kingdom, and that Google expressed desire to address the situation. A YouTube spokesperson said that the company has no record of the September 22nd email but told BuzzFeed News that Uziel did email on September 13th with screenshots of offending videos. The company says it removed every video escalated by Uziel.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: children; elsagate; exploitation; trafficking; youtube
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Before YouTube removed them, these live-action child exploitation videos were rampant and easy to find. What’s more, they were allegedly on YouTube’s radar: Matan Uziel — a producer and activist who leads Real Women, Real Stories (a platform for women to recount personal stories of trauma, including rape, sexual assault, and sex trafficking) and who provided BuzzFeed News with more than 20 examples of such videos — told BuzzFeed News that he tried multiple times to bring the videos to YouTube’s attention and that no substantive action was taken.

—-

That’s because YouTube SJWs were busy demonitizing the accounts of conservatives. They don’t have time to take down child exploitation videos.


21 posted on 11/26/2017 12:19:46 AM PST by Flick Lives (The FBI is a taxpayer funded Mafia organization)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Children should be out playing.

Too many perverts are in the tech industry and government.


22 posted on 11/26/2017 12:29:56 AM PST by Tarasaramozart
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To: Tarasaramozart

Correct....they should be out playing...


23 posted on 11/26/2017 7:11:51 AM PST by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is, too. :-))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This is a cultural problem as well, I see far too many parents from lower SEC regardless of race posting videos they think are cute of toddlers and young girls twerking or otherwise dancing inappropriately etc.

Sure if you’re only sharing this with your family and friends it might be cute, but not on the internet.
Of course I’m generally appalled at what people allow their young children to listen to and/or watch, media wise.


24 posted on 11/26/2017 7:57:12 AM PST by Katya
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To: Bodleian_Girl

seems they’ve all been deleted/account terminated

but for every one gone two new prolly pop up


25 posted on 11/26/2017 8:38:15 AM PST by Chode (You have all of the resources you are going to have. Abandon your illusions and plan accordingly.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks


.... Massive Child Exploitation Problem..

starts with....... ''digital abuse'
continues with. 'digital addiction'
continues with. 'digital rape'
ends with ....?





26 posted on 11/26/2017 8:59:50 AM PST by Koracan
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Exactly. It all goes back to the Fall. We have a free will: God or Satan which means Truth v. Lies and Virtue v. Vice.

It shocks me how many actively choose to follow satan and the sheeple who don’t even realize what they are doing because of laziness and ignorance.


27 posted on 11/26/2017 9:12:37 AM PST by savagesusie (When Law ceases to be Just, it ceases to be Law. (Thomas A./Founders/John Marshall)/Nuremberg)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

These sites are celebrity endorsed! : )


28 posted on 11/26/2017 1:42:58 PM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: ReagansShinyHair
"...These are the creepy Elsa and creepy Spiderman videos, right?..."

Correct, although there's a lot more content than just that.

There was even a child-oriented video of Spiderman drugging and raping Elsa while the Joker watched and (it is implied) masturbated.

It's called Elsagate, and it's real.

29 posted on 11/27/2017 11:35:51 AM PST by T-Bone Texan
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

The people in this world are so freaking messed up.


30 posted on 11/27/2017 11:39:58 AM PST by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
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To: jarwulf

I take it you don’t have kids, and that you have not spent time viewing the content in question.

It’s bad, icky stuff.

For instance, no country on earth still vaccinates children in the butt, so why all the videos of children getting needles in the butt? Wholly unnecessary. Borders on kiddy pr0n.


31 posted on 11/27/2017 11:44:00 AM PST by T-Bone Texan
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To: jarwulf
"...‘pedo’ videos which are just retards commenting on kids in videos. ..."

Wrong again.

32 posted on 11/27/2017 11:45:40 AM PST by T-Bone Texan
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