451–460 of 461 posts
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And also don't allow access to an internet-enabled device without direct supervision until they are fairly mature.
You're not going to be able to convince people who benefited greatly from unfettered internet access in their youth to do that.
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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 probl…
You were a sheltered, sensitive child.
Unrelated to the news article, but I'm alarmed that the usual HN balanced-skepticism is largely buried in this thread: Almost no-one has questioned whether these videos are indeed harmful to children. The top comment is a Medium article that sensationalizes these videos to the point where I was afraid the video would destroy my brain a-la Snow Crash. I'm picking up a lot of "please think of the children" and "you wou…
I didn't see any discussion by the article or comments about censorship. I think you are sensationalizing the article. What exactly is there to be skeptical about? The article simply brought up a point that many of us are unaware of. The problem is that YouTube is something of a monopoly, and that what is explicitly made for very young children is not what any of us would expect. It's simply important to be aware of…
Unrelated to the news article, but I'm alarmed that the usual HN balanced-skepticism is largely buried in this thread: Almost no-one has questioned whether these videos are indeed harmful to children. The top comment is a Medium article that sensationalizes these videos to the point where I was afraid the video would destroy my brain a-la Snow Crash. I'm picking up a lot of "please think of the children" and "you wou…
> Almost no-one has questioned whether these videos are indeed harmful to children. Then feel free to question it. Since this refers to a large body of videos, make sure you did your homework. Just some random things from the top of the pile if you will (but it's a big pile and frankly, even just the amount of very messed up things on the surface doesn't exactly make me want to measure out this particular ocean in fu…
I don't even have the foundation to do my homework; I'm not a psychologist.
I watched several of the videos. I can't say they kept me up at night (but that doesn't mean anything in the context of the discussion). I have no idea by what mechanism these would traumatize children; perhaps someone more familiar with child psychology could think of something similar? If these videos are completely unlike anything before them, any conjecture is meaningless. I'm in no way saying that they are or are not harmless.
I'm more concerned that any knowledge that can be gleaned about this phenomenon is being buried under emotionally charged moral outrage
> We live in a world where people physically throwing out poisoned bait for dogs is a thing.
Red herring.
> As in singular?
I mistakenly mixed my tenses, I said "videos" and then "video." My apologies.
> "Detrimental to children" in light of these videos, and their sheer amount, is like calling mass murder "not very nice".
To be clear, are you comparing the effect of these videos on children to 'mass murder?' I can't make heads or tails of your analogy.
As a thought exercise, there are a lot of commonalities between these videos and the average commercial that plays at 8pm: - 'sheer amount' - revenue makers - children might watch hours of them if unsupervised by parents - people think they will destroy the minds of the youth using some unexplained power - mass murder for young minds (unverified)
There's a subreddit about this called /r/ElsaGate. Some of them feel there's a more sinister meaning to some of the content of these strange videos, like here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/comments/6t754b/thank_you/
In a world with private key encryption, sending a message on a weird video on youtube via antiquated cyphers seems less plausible than bot generated comments from a lexicon that increase a videos profitability.
If I was to infer a conspiracy, it would be that the some people are putting easily deciphered insidious messages on the videos purely for their own entertainment. The videos themselves are a simple cash grab, some of which are very weird and those are the ones we end up discussing.
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> Almost no-one has questioned whether these videos are indeed harmful to children. Then feel free to question it. Since this refers to a large body of videos, make sure you did your homework. Just some random things from the top of the pile if you will (but it's a big pile and frankly, even just the amount of very messed up things on the surface doesn't exactly make me want to measure out this particular ocean in fu…
> make sure you did your homework I don't even have the foundation to do my homework; I'm not a psychologist. I watched several of the videos. I can't say they kept me up at night (but that doesn't mean anything in the context of the discussion). I have no idea by what mechanism these would traumatize children; perhaps someone more familiar with child psychology could think of something similar? If these videos are c…
Well, you just watched a bunch. You didn't watch the theme of drugging and raping people, mutilation, dissociation, murder, incest, blood, and on and on and on, over a stretch of TEN THOUSANDS of videos, produced in concert by hundreds of channels.
You basically are comparing the effect of you as an adult watching a few videos \* with toddlers aged 0 to x, the more neglected of them watching who knows on them, on a site where the people who create the tech to make this happen by itself reside, enabled by the company that is owned by our favorite future shaping company. This isn't obscure, this isn't at your doorstep, this is in your house, and this is how seriously you take it.
Un-fucking-believable.
You at least know that neural pathways are still formed when outside the womb, and how crucial the first few years are for brain development and the whole life? You're not a psychologist, you say? You are a human being and therefor amateur psychologist by default, you are literate, and you have internet access. There is no excuse.
Even just the fact that they might overhear adults, some of them pointing out that abusing children on purpose is wrong, and others excusing their own apathy with the shoddiest sophistry they can drag up, could be damaging for a child. It might consider that a viable option, instead of the fucked up thing it is.
\* (a few 30 or 60 minute long ones? I doubt, so what does several even mean? this is like someone talking about microplastic and bioaccumulation and you sniffing your fleece sweater saying you don't see a problem, and expecting to be delivered everything on a silver tablet instead of getting off your own butt, and that's generous, and seeing how we're not talking about harm nobody could have foreseen but deliberate assault, automated and on a mass scale, I simply don't feel burdened to convince you. I have to organize with those who don't need convincing (because they don't need to be pushed to take a closer look, and don't easily give up because they know the energy their child can have getting glued to things), to bring this to the attention of parents, and the rest can sleep with their conscience and their response to the question how they reacted when someone said there is something here, it's really really fucked up, please leave your convenience and attention span at the door and stand with me for long as this issue that others unleashed on us against our will takes. How could I ever break bread with these people ever again before, you know, clearing this up? You weren't there when it was against toddlers and when all it took was to cut back on your regular entertainment for a week to get up to speed. Will you be there if worse things come? Or side with the abuser even quicker, having conditioned yourself to do so in "little" cases like this? This is a historical moment and like all of them, those on the wrong side are totally unaware during it, and make up even more BS afterwards. Been there, done that, this issue is too big, too easy to research (just put it on autoplay and do chores and wait until you get really disturbing vibes, no need to bother yourself with reading a book about abuse or brain development), and targets too defenseless people. You think I'm abrasive and maybe really nasty, I think that I replied at all was generous. After all, if you can get over being offended for calling you out, it contains information and constitutes another chance, as does every free minute of every day from now on. Over and out.)
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Have you seen these videos? Spiderman peeing on Elsa? Come on.
I have seen some of them, but I'm not a toddler. How would seeing this content actually be harmful to a toddler (1 - ~3 years old?) I'm not a child psychologist so I may be wrong but I think you need a certain awareness of cultural norms to be disturbed by deviations from those norms, and toddlers might not even recognize what they're looking at, much less know that it's wrong, or why. I suspect these particular vide…
There is a reason why parent-child interaction is so important in early life. Children imitate adults. They are incredibly impressionable, their brains grow extremely quickly. Yes, you must talk slow and in simple terms to very young children, but they are not just confused idiots who will forget everything they saw when they are older. If you speak with a larger vocabulary, contextually, to a child, they will pick up your vocabulary and they will eventually come to recognize it as having a specific meaning in a specific context.
If a child sees spiderman peeing on elsa, he is either going to be upset and confused, or he is going to take this behavior as normal. This is how socialization works. He is learning from everything he sees.
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> the constant focus on family friendly content is killing basically all of the channels I really enjoy watching If you're not paying for YouTube, they have to get money from somewhere and if those somewheres don't want to advertise on non-family friendly content, what are YouTube supposed to do? Go bankrupt on principle?
Something like Patreon where people pay for premium content would work. They could set something up so creators could mark videos as premium, and then people have to pay a certain amount to watch. Google already has the payments side of things covered from their other services, it really wouldn't be a stretch to add something like this. Creators are basically having to do this anyway using a different site (Patreon)…
Isn't that basically YouTube Red? Which almost no-one pays for...
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> make sure you did your homework I don't even have the foundation to do my homework; I'm not a psychologist. I watched several of the videos. I can't say they kept me up at night (but that doesn't mean anything in the context of the discussion). I have no idea by what mechanism these would traumatize children; perhaps someone more familiar with child psychology could think of something similar? If these videos are c…
> I have no idea by what mechanism these would traumatize children Well, you just watched a bunch. You didn't watch the theme of drugging and raping people, mutilation, dissociation, murder, incest, blood, and on and on and on, over a stretch of TEN THOUSANDS of videos, produced in concert by hundreds of channels. You basically are comparing the effect of you as an adult watching a few videos \* with toddlers aged 0…
So, by logic, if a child hasn't been taught to read and write by the time they're 3-years-old, they will never recover, they will always be less successful? That's my excuse then, I'm arguing with you because my neural pathways weren't well formed when I was 2-years-old. From my experience, most people who claim to be experts on toddler brains aren't neurologists, they're flash card salesmen.
What I'm trying to say is that when we're talking about neurology and psychology, LOGIC is not useful.
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But I digress. I can see this hits close to home for you, and that I'm raising your ire by wanting to discuss details when you see a large threat that needs to be eliminated, not examined.
I concede that you may be right on this point. I completely agree, these videos should be removed from Youtube (for several reasons). But that doesn't preclude discussing the videos objectively.
My apologies, and I wish you the best of luck.
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Adults crave predictability too; they've just seen enough stuff to be able to predict most of the things one encounters out in society. But watch a YouTube video of a magic trick, and you'll likely click back and re-watch the critical moment a few times before you've even realized what you're doing. Even if you don't end up understanding what happens, your brain inherently wants to make sure you are entirely clear on…
Teacher here. Even most teenagers crave predictability (and structure) though they would never admit it or even be aware of it. I imagine it’s much easier to push and test boundaries when you know exactly when and where they are. Easier to “rebel” when you know the time to rebel is from 11:15 to 12 and then you can take a break and go get lunch.
Thank you.