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YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

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Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#221
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We used to let our 3 y/o watch youtube. She learned lots of things from there which was amazing. Colors, Numbers, the alphabet; all by the time she was 2. I'm not a teacher by any means so it was awesome to see this happen. It's entirely possible the videos made this happen, or at least helped, but some kids just develop that stuff crazy-early. My daughter saw little video content before age two, and very little Yo…

It's almost as if genetics are king.

This is true although nobody likes to admit this. Intelligence, including specific subfields of intelligence, is highly heritable, explaining about 70% of variance.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> People or characters from TV shows aimed at children below 12 are not allowed to do any product endorsements, in any context. I wonder how this is handled when the ad context is implicit. Isn't Spiderman's image, for example, always an implied advertisement for Marvel, his movies, action figures, and whatever cereal box he is appearing on this month.

I'm from The Netherlands, and I can't say for certain, but I can't remember a product being sold at a grocery store that had characters from a children's TV show/movie on the label to try and sell it. Cereal is less of an issue in the first place (that's a very US thing, didn't even know it existed till I moved to the US when I was 10), but you just don't find brands associating themselves with characters from movies…

>Large "super store" like WalMart/Target/others don't really exist. I can't go buy a couch at Albert Heijn. I don't go buy a TV at Aldi. In the US however going to Walmart for electronics is as normal as going to get grocerie

You don’t get a TV at Aldi in the US either, and many (most?) Walmart stores don’t sell groceries

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#223
post #179

Also, in case you glazed over the link to the recent Medium article, here it is: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in... I read it last night after the wife recommended it ... and wow.

This is just the latest iteration of how any website is only 7 Kevin Bacon clicks away from rotten.com. The net is vast and infinite and funnels the human id. Autotegenerated content will never be a clean feed until machine learning evolves. Or to put it another way, teach your kids to talk with you if they see or experience something icky.

I wonder how much of this is kids not realizing they can skip videos. I'd like to do an experiment to see how quickly kids change the video for different categories of videos. Maybe they just like videos, and clicking randomly on child's links at the end of videos will eventually drop you into this maze.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#224
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just the latest iteration of how any website is only 7 Kevin Bacon clicks away from rotten.com. The net is vast and infinite and funnels the human id. Autotegenerated content will never be a clean feed until machine learning evolves. Or to put it another way, teach your kids to talk with you if they see or experience something icky.

And also don't allow access to an internet-enabled device without direct supervision until they are fairly mature.

This.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#226
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden, but on closer inspection it seems I was mistaken. There are, however, very strict rules: • No junk mail addressed to anyone under 16 years of age. • No TV advertisements directed towards, or meant to catch the attention of, anyone under 12 years of age. Additionally, in TV shows aimed at children below 12, there can be: 1. No commercials preceding or following the program, nor any commercial breaks in the pro…

Does "No product placements of any kind" apply to animated shows that are themselves placing a product? Do they not have shows like Pokemon, Bionicle or Transformers in Sweden?

[deleted]

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#227
post #175
post #155

I don't believe in this kind of censorship and that medium article just reads like a bunch of alarmist nonsense to me. I was exposed to tons of super-weird stuff on TV an the internet (adult swim, fat-pie, etc) and so were most of my friends growing up. I don't think it was problematic for any of us. When you're a kid and something feels disturbing, you turn it off. Our society really doesn't give kids any credit for…

It's one thing when you discovered porn in the 90's at the age of 12, versus being 5 years old and watching Spiderman rape & murder Elsa.

I'm sorry, but how is that difference?

Unless I take you wrong, do you claim that a child that watch cartonish spiderman forcing himself on Elsa, will end up child molesters or murderers themselves, then I would love to see some statistics, other that the fact your argument sounds reasonable on its face.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#228
post #208
post #185

honest question: why is it OK if it's adult that's targeted but not OK if it's children? Literally any argument you apply to the latter applies to the former: 1. still developing -> adults technically are, too. 2. more naive -> naivete is a function of life experience. there are plenty of naive adults. etc. how about we just not advertise, at all. this is virtue signaling at its finest. as long as advertising is targ…

Because children are dependent, but an adult, presumably, has the capacity and capabilities to make their own informed and mature decisions. It's often not true, since emotionally and spiritually many adults are still kids, but that's not the point.

What is the point then? Why not just stop targeting people in general?

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#229
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you got downvoted, have an upvote

Probably because the people complaining are not the same ones who are leaving their kids unattended with these videos. This thread is full of parents saying that they banned youtube for their child because these algorithmic videos have began to fill all youtube searches for kids. I think it's more of a "why did bots and inattentive parents fuck it up for the rest of us."

Enough with the victim blaming. I think this is a serious problem and I don't have any children to leave unattended.

Re: YouTube says it will crack down on bizarre videos targeting children

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article seems to never get to the point. What was the disturbing thing?

Three main things: - Surrealist gibberish videos made with cheap render assets that feature whatever will show up in kids’ content search (thus a predominance of Marvel and Disney characters) - Gross-out and violent troll videos that imitate the surrealist gibberish videos well enough for the algorithms to think they’re kids’ content - Live-action content that tends to include borderline child abuse in the name of “f…

And animated sequences of popular kids show characters murdering and raping each other... or so I've heard (and seen commented on up thread).

I wouldn't watch it myself so just hearsay.

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