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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

#371

Post by rspeer »

cowpig wrote: post #178
kevingadd wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Videos where peppa the pig gets tortured by a dentist and turns into a robot don't count as violence?

Yeah, and it's tamer than pretty much any episode of Ren & Stimpy.

If I had a kid, I would not want them watching Ren & Stimpy until they were mentally prepared for it.

I remember the show being a wonderful subversive work of art. I also remember it being nightmare fuel when I was as old as 11. If a young child ends up watching a Ren & Stimpy equivalent just because YouTube recommended it, or more likely, watching something just as edgy but without the quality -- that too is a problem.

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

#372

Post by jpalomaki »

microcolonel wrote: post #107
sbjustin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. She's only allowed on Netflix now. I've seen Sofia 10,000 times.

I never understood how it was possible for little girls to watch the same movie literally hundreds of times, sometimes twice in one day. Some day science will get around to the real mysteries like this. I think I've tried to erase the memories of torture I survived, hearing Horton Hears a Who played most days for almost a year.

I was thinking about the same, but then realized I'm doing the same. I have watched some comedy clips on YouTube over and over (think Fast Show, Monty Python) and still enjoy them even though I know exactly what to expect.

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

#373

Post by seanmcdirmid »

aerodeck wrote: post #297
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You'd probably do a cheaper and better job just spending 15 minutes browsing youtube, then calling your buddy in Macedonia.

Sure, if many of your competitors aren’t already doing that.

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

#374

Post by krapp »

worldsayshi wrote: post #353
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.

That would undermine their revenue model. Youtube isn't intended to be a walled garden for children, it's intended to be a viral social platform that targets consumers with advertising (or offers to upgrade to the paid tier) through the lure of content discovery.

I find it difficult to believe Google never knew these videos existed, since they appear to be an entire industry based on copyright infringement and gaming their algorithms, one would expect Google to want to kill them with fire. That they are allowed to proliferate can only mean they serve Google's interest for the site - they drive clicks and views.

Whatever other motives there may be for them (personally, I think they're nothing more sinister than monetizing clickbait) I think it's important to remember that Youtube is a business driven by clickbait, and the design of the site reinforces this everywhere it can.

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

#375

Post by jgalt212 »

> that the issue is relatively minor. It says that the fraction of videos on YouTube Kids that were missed by its algorithmic filters and then flagged by users during the last 30 days amounted to just 0.005 percent of videos on the service

Any parent will tell you that you can read your child 199 good stories and 1 bad/scary one, and it's that 1 bad one that gives them recurrent nightmares.

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

#376

Post by knz »

EADGBE wrote: post #58
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.

We've had good luck with Netflix for Kids.

The PBS kids website/app is also a good option. The kids can only watch a limited range of PBS shoes that are child friendly (everything from Sesame Street to SciGirls).

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

#377

Post by MichaelGG »

leggomylibro wrote: post #98
richmarr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the surprisingly-high proportion of content available without subtitles/captions. It's 2017 and plenty of people are deaf, and yet the BBC, Netflix, Amazon, etc. regularly pretend this section of their audience doesn't exist. My guess is that is an instance of poor diversity within the team that set the early direction for YouTube. Maybe a team with a higher proportion of parents respresented might h…

I'm not sure what you mean? Netflix got sued for not following the ADA over that exact issue, and it looks like they came into compliance years ago after settling and landing on a captioning framework with the National Association for the Deaf. http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/11/tech/web/netflix-subtitles-set...

I regularly find stuff on Netflix that is only subtitled in a language not spoken in the movie. It's very frustrating. Combined with Netflix's increasingly shitty catalog and I'm sure I should cancel.

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

#378

Post by MichaelGG »

napa15 wrote: post #278

I find most tv shows targetted at children to be weird and bad for children, they show adults behaving in an infantized way. This subliminally teaches children that this kind of childish behavior is appropiate even as an adult. It shows that caring about whatever papa baba bear on his little adventure circus is still something you could concievably care about as an adult. You may think children dont make that connect…

By that logic, kids have been taught that adults are out to kidnap, kill, and otherwise cause mayhem and the only way to stop them is fearless children, preferably one that talks to animals.

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

#379

Post by MichaelGG »

rhizome wrote: post #137
LyndsySimon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What communities are you seeing this in? In the firearms/gun rights communities, it seems like the prevailing opinion is that YouTube is specifically targeting them based on political bias. I've not really considering it much, but your comment makes me wonder if their issues are part of a much larger pattern.

The persecution complex comes directly from the NRA's uncompromising lobbying and ad strategies, and the perception of threats is based on received wisdom formulated entirely through the gun industry's profit motive.

What? You sure it doesn't come from the steady erosion of gun rights? Calls from all sorts of shifty politicians to restrict things, even when it makes no sense. Like after the LV shooting, when there is still no explanation available, just lies, yet people still use it to justify taking away more rights?

I used to think the NRA was nuts, then I saw that there's no negotiating with the other side. Gun owners only stand to lose, and have consistently had their rights destroyed. If they didn't have a persecution complex, they wouldn't be paying attention.

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

#380

Post by worldsayshi »

setzer22 wrote: post #369
worldsayshi wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This can even be done without google. In fact, this would require minimal work. For example, Kodi's youtube plugin, which lacks the recommendations and autoplay features (which is a feature in this case), could be easily restricted to only show the "Subscriptions" folder. On the other hand, a user-maintained curated list of channels for children is not something that unthinkable (think of GitHub model, with pull requ…

However, as krapp pointed out, the main argument against limiting to subscribed content would be that it undermines youtube's business model. If such project got a lot of users youtube might start to work against it.
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