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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

#351

Post by Steko »

tudorw wrote: post #345
sbjustin wrote: post #13

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. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

Agreed and YouTube could do a lot better, my child does not need a library of 30 million videos, I would rather have a well curated whitelist of 10000.

> YouTube says it typically takes at least a few days for content to make its way from YouTube proper to YouTube Kids, and the hope is that within that window, users will flag anything potentially disturbing to children

They’ll use the computing power of a small nation to train their Go-Bot and can instantly identify anything that might belong to Big Content ... but when it comes to basic decency Google throw up their hands.

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

#352

Post by chatmasta »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #325
mynewtb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth can parents willingly expose their children to any kind of advertisement is beyond me. Adblocking is a must. Especially at such young age, you should know and control all manipulative media your kid consumes.

Unfortunately, decent adblock on Android requires root, which most can't have, and most of those who can would still need to unlock the bootloader, flash recovery, flash supersu, install fdroid, and install adblock. That leaves us with a very small subset of users that can use adblock. This problem is exasperated by the fact that phones/tablets are particularly well-suited to, and popular with, young children. Childr…

You can setup a DNS proxy with the android sdk (no root), I thought.

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

#353

Post by worldsayshi »

sbjustin wrote: post #13

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. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

I don't get why they can't just implement a way to just show content that you have subscribed to. That way you can exactly control what you let your kid look at.

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

#354

Post by chrido »

sbjustin wrote: post #13

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. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

My 3 year old loves excavator and robot videos. Suddenly all this strange videos were recommended. Search "bad baby" to see what I mean. They also pop up in youtube for kids and they have thousands of views, unbelievable!

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

#355

Post by worldsayshi »

tudorw wrote: post #345
sbjustin wrote: post #13

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. Then these weird videos started showing up. We took youtube away for exactly these videos that are mentioned in this link. These are targeting children and it's sick.

Agreed and YouTube could do a lot better, my child does not need a library of 30 million videos, I would rather have a well curated whitelist of 10000.

Yeah, they could solve this problem in a heartbeat by having a mode where you can only look at your subscribed content.

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

#356

Post by chatmasta »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #235
crooked-v wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely algorithmic generation seems less likely to me than Southeast Asian video factories that use cheap labor to churn out a bajillion variations of the same thing with different keywords and characters slotted in.

You are probably right ATM, but the technology is improving rapidly. At any rate, it is entirely plausible that the story themes are autogeneratrd (using a neural net to identify hot topics, then curating what it can produce on its own).

The kind of people pushing content like this are not using neural nets. They’re probably using Markov chains and PHP YouTube uploaders from 2012.

There’s a very distinct internet marketing subculture, and for some reason it’s always had a lot of cross over with script kiddies and semi technical Wordpress marketers.

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

#357

Post by bitwize »

fletom wrote: post #348
bitwize wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, sheesh. That's terrifying, but it makes a whole lot more sense than my pet theory, was that the videos were screening tools for state actors. They would seed YouTube with videos of beloved characters undergoing suffering and violence, and then use analytics to determine who kept watching. The kids who got squicked out would be collateral damage, but the ones who kept watching would be identified as potentially u…

It sounds to me like your perspective may be skewed by having watched too many Hollywood action movies.

Or read too many HN stories about Russian agents of influence.

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

#358

Post by jwilk »

amigoingtodie wrote: post #282
colanderman wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney movies generally makes sense and have some logic rooted in the real world . Yes there are talking animals and magic but the stories ultimately relate to the human experience. I think the problem with the crap the author finds is that – it is nonsensical . These videos addict kids by triggering their innate desire to seek out novel/scary situations and explore them. This instinct exists so kids learn about the…

What about this Disney movie? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

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

#359

Post by bberrry »

WalterBright wrote: post #209
ashark wrote: 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…

I recall some research that showed that very young children did not pick up language from watching TV. It required an adult to closely interact with the child to learn language.

That's complete bunk. I was fluent in English by the age of 7-8 entirely from having watched a ton of TCC (a British kids channel) on my own. I'm sure adult aid helps, but it is in no way necessary.

I'm from Sweden btw

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

#360

Post by ejstronge »

bberrry wrote: post #359
WalterBright wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall some research that showed that very young children did not pick up language from watching TV. It required an adult to closely interact with the child to learn language.

That's complete bunk. I was fluent in English by the age of 7-8 entirely from having watched a ton of TCC (a British kids channel) on my own. I'm sure adult aid helps, but it is in no way necessary. I'm from Sweden btw

I think the original comment applies to one’s first language, as opposed to later languages
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