5 ms·

> If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own fault as a parent. Unfettered access, or maybe you turn your head for 5 minutes and y

by sbov 8y ago

> If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own fault as a parent. Unfettered access, or maybe you turn your head for 5 minutes and your kid clicks a recommended video next to the one you set them up to watch and now mickey mouse is running around cutting everyone's head off oh god what is happeni...

intertextuality 8y ago
Recommended by whom? An algorithm? Why is that any guarantee of safe or quality programming for young children? Youtube does need to address these videos, but they're not omniscient gods either. There is too much content to humanly (or algorithmically, seemingly) to police effectively. Why do you put so much trust in random recommended videos? What makes youtube so trustworthy? I'm asking because I genuinely don't understand this mindset at all.
- kristiandupont 8y ago
  It's not a "mindset" that there is an inviting "click here for the next recommended video" link when one is done playing.
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    Then don't use youtube. Download the videos offline first, etc. What's the issue here? No one is forcing you to let your kid sit unattended on a website with questionable recommended videos.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Recommended by whom? An algorithm? By YouTube; the choice to make the recommendation and the choice to use an algorithm (both in general and the specific algorithm chosen) as part of the recommendation process are human decisions made yb YouTube employees in the course of their duties. > Youtube does need to address these videos, but they're not omniscient gods either. While the second half is true, it magnifies rather than mitigates the firall it does is call out the hubris and irresponsibility at YouTube behind the current status quo. > There is too much content to humanly (or algorithmically, seemingly) to police effectively. The quantity of content on YouTube, and the fact that it is not constrained by their ability to effectively police it is also a product of human decisions made by YouTube employees in the course of job duties, not some kind for natural occurrence with which YouTube is beset. And the fact that any part of that corpus is subject to recommendation algorithms without being policed is also such a human decision.
  - intertextuality 8y ago
    At the end of the day, it's the parent's/guardian's fault for knowingly letting their kids browse on a platform where anyone can upload anything. You are putting way too much trust in an opaque corporation to provide adequate content for young children. Just because it's "Youtube" does not guarantee anything. In fact it makes it much more dubious of a site, knowing exactly how youtube functions and how google manages it (very badly—at least for children's content). No one is forcing you to put your kids in front of youtube. Please stop shifting blame when it's your fault for trusting random recommendations from an opaque, broken algorithm to filter endless random content, run by an uncaring corporation.
collyw 8y ago
Tom and Jerry weren't far off that when I was a kid. Or the Roadrunner. I'll admit that I haven't seen any of the newer videos that people seem to be complaining about, but what is so much different about them from what we got 30 years ago?
- intertextuality 8y ago
  Tom & Jerry was just a somewhat violent cartoon, but some of the mentioned videos are somewhat disturbing. You can just google elsagate. My opinion is that people exploited a captive market + youtube's positive feedback loop algorithm to create such videos. FWIW, my brother and I grew up on old tom & jerry cartoons. I think they're great, other than the few episodes with plainly racist stereotypes.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > I'll admit that I haven't seen any of the newer videos that people seem to be complaining about Stop right there. You have no idea what you're conflating here. If you have a strong stomach and no history of being abused, look into it. If you don't, please, read good accounts of people who did... or at least have no opinion about it, but not "meh, it's prolly fine". It's not.
  - collyw 8y ago
    That's why I asked. I checked the wikipedia page as the other poster suggested and doesn't look that bad to me. What do you feel is so much worse about them that the coyote being crushed under a huge rock?
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      What does "checked the wikipedia page" mean? Reading the linked footnotes? And what about "sexual situations, fetishes, drugs" says "Tom & Jerry" to you? Not that the overview on that WP page does it justice, at all. At one point it even said Elsagate "was" a colloquialism, heh. It's hardly a full list of the themes that are repeated over and over and over again. It involves rape, pregnant infants, (there was one live action thing with Spiderman drugging and raping Elsa and her little child (played by an actual child, though with Elsagate you will also find plenty of adults in diapers or with pacifiers, or otherwise playing a child) as they are unconscious, then delivering both their babies in the form of plastic dolls, and Elsa and her child and Spiderman all being super happy and clapping in delight at the end), a LOT of kidnapping and bondage, children left behind, parents being evil for denying them sweets or staying up late or other things, parents getting hurt by their children or even murdered so children can get something they want, people generally murdering each other out of anger, including with automatic weapons, hands coming out of mirrors or mobile devices, children crying at a graveyard, hands coming out of graves, getting injections to get "made better" regardless of how silly that is (like eating a toy truck and getting an injection because of that), generally eating things and that having some kind of effect, a lot of binge eating, objects or people being crushed underfoot or under cars, a lot of leering at someone who is in danger, throwing people off roofs, jumping off roofs or committing suicide, a lot of confusion or anxiety about pregnancy (e.g. what gender it is, or whose kid is is), a lot of adultery, people forcing others to do things via hypnosis, drugs, violence or even poverty vs wealth, product pyramids, objects floating in swimming pools (god knows why), and of course the whole "color learning", "daddy finger" (jumping on the bed, wheels on the bus) stuff, the same song repeated 20 times while persons swap heads or colors. All these themes repeat across various cartoon themes, live action and 3d animations, including Minecraft-style animations, and modded GTA 5. Even all that isn't an exhaustive description, it's a joke compared to the content. But already I need to stop because hey, "who wants to read all that". Welcome to Elsagate, that's exactly what it is. https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in... https://imgur.com/r/ElsaGate https://imgur.com/r/ElsaGate https://www.reddit.com/r/elsagate https://www.reddit.com/r/elsagate (as I said in another comment, there's a lot of crap there, but historically also posts that offer real information, compilations, reports of parents, and so on) https://i.imgur.com/MziRRQw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/MziRRQw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HfsdvWo.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HfsdvWo.jpg That's just thumbnails, very few in comparison to what is there, not the millions of hours of video, the countless demented 3D animations. Plenty of those involving syringes, too. And that's not even taking the deceptive stuff into account, how they describe everything as family friendly (I remember channel names with phrases like "day care" in them), and all about learning, also offering unused social media accounts as contact address, to seem all above board to anyone who doesn't actually look. Just how the the vile content is often padded in a lot of harmless content, so parents that just take a short glance (or you) might not notice, and so on. Who knows, if you enter "learn colors" or "minecraft monster school" and click around (and I don't just mean once or twice), you might find a lot that's currently being uploaded, or never even was deleted. I genuinely don't want to look because I've seen enough. Among other things it's a DDOS attack on our attention, it exploits our desire to ignore such things, or rationalize them -- so that it looks fine at "first glance", or similar to something benign you already know and therefore benign, especially when watching zero of the X thousands of hours that make up the body of Elsagate; that's in the nature of the subject.

by sbov 8y ago

intertextuality 8y ago

Recommended by whom? An algorithm? Why is that any guarantee of safe or quality programming for young children? Youtube does need to address these videos, but they're not omniscient gods either. There is too much content to humanly (or algorithmically, seemingly) to police effectively. Why do you put so much trust in random recommended videos? What makes youtube so trustworthy? I'm asking because I genuinely don't understand this mindset at all.

kristiandupont 8y ago
It's not a "mindset" that there is an inviting "click here for the next recommended video" link when one is done playing.
- intertextuality 8y ago
  Then don't use youtube. Download the videos offline first, etc. What's the issue here? No one is forcing you to let your kid sit unattended on a website with questionable recommended videos.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Recommended by whom? An algorithm? By YouTube; the choice to make the recommendation and the choice to use an algorithm (both in general and the specific algorithm chosen) as part of the recommendation process are human decisions made yb YouTube employees in the course of their duties. > Youtube does need to address these videos, but they're not omniscient gods either. While the second half is true, it magnifies rather than mitigates the firall it does is call out the hubris and irresponsibility at YouTube behind the current status quo. > There is too much content to humanly (or algorithmically, seemingly) to police effectively. The quantity of content on YouTube, and the fact that it is not constrained by their ability to effectively police it is also a product of human decisions made by YouTube employees in the course of job duties, not some kind for natural occurrence with which YouTube is beset. And the fact that any part of that corpus is subject to recommendation algorithms without being policed is also such a human decision.
- intertextuality 8y ago
  At the end of the day, it's the parent's/guardian's fault for knowingly letting their kids browse on a platform where anyone can upload anything. You are putting way too much trust in an opaque corporation to provide adequate content for young children. Just because it's "Youtube" does not guarantee anything. In fact it makes it much more dubious of a site, knowing exactly how youtube functions and how google manages it (very badly—at least for children's content). No one is forcing you to put your kids in front of youtube. Please stop shifting blame when it's your fault for trusting random recommendations from an opaque, broken algorithm to filter endless random content, run by an uncaring corporation.

collyw 8y ago

Tom and Jerry weren't far off that when I was a kid. Or the Roadrunner. I'll admit that I haven't seen any of the newer videos that people seem to be complaining about, but what is so much different about them from what we got 30 years ago?

intertextuality 8y ago
Tom & Jerry was just a somewhat violent cartoon, but some of the mentioned videos are somewhat disturbing. You can just google elsagate. My opinion is that people exploited a captive market + youtube's positive feedback loop algorithm to create such videos. FWIW, my brother and I grew up on old tom & jerry cartoons. I think they're great, other than the few episodes with plainly racist stereotypes.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> I'll admit that I haven't seen any of the newer videos that people seem to be complaining about Stop right there. You have no idea what you're conflating here. If you have a strong stomach and no history of being abused, look into it. If you don't, please, read good accounts of people who did... or at least have no opinion about it, but not "meh, it's prolly fine". It's not.
- collyw 8y ago
  That's why I asked. I checked the wikipedia page as the other poster suggested and doesn't look that bad to me. What do you feel is so much worse about them that the coyote being crushed under a huge rock?
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    What does "checked the wikipedia page" mean? Reading the linked footnotes? And what about "sexual situations, fetishes, drugs" says "Tom & Jerry" to you? Not that the overview on that WP page does it justice, at all. At one point it even said Elsagate "was" a colloquialism, heh. It's hardly a full list of the themes that are repeated over and over and over again. It involves rape, pregnant infants, (there was one live action thing with Spiderman drugging and raping Elsa and her little child (played by an actual child, though with Elsagate you will also find plenty of adults in diapers or with pacifiers, or otherwise playing a child) as they are unconscious, then delivering both their babies in the form of plastic dolls, and Elsa and her child and Spiderman all being super happy and clapping in delight at the end), a LOT of kidnapping and bondage, children left behind, parents being evil for denying them sweets or staying up late or other things, parents getting hurt by their children or even murdered so children can get something they want, people generally murdering each other out of anger, including with automatic weapons, hands coming out of mirrors or mobile devices, children crying at a graveyard, hands coming out of graves, getting injections to get "made better" regardless of how silly that is (like eating a toy truck and getting an injection because of that), generally eating things and that having some kind of effect, a lot of binge eating, objects or people being crushed underfoot or under cars, a lot of leering at someone who is in danger, throwing people off roofs, jumping off roofs or committing suicide, a lot of confusion or anxiety about pregnancy (e.g. what gender it is, or whose kid is is), a lot of adultery, people forcing others to do things via hypnosis, drugs, violence or even poverty vs wealth, product pyramids, objects floating in swimming pools (god knows why), and of course the whole "color learning", "daddy finger" (jumping on the bed, wheels on the bus) stuff, the same song repeated 20 times while persons swap heads or colors. All these themes repeat across various cartoon themes, live action and 3d animations, including Minecraft-style animations, and modded GTA 5. Even all that isn't an exhaustive description, it's a joke compared to the content. But already I need to stop because hey, "who wants to read all that". Welcome to Elsagate, that's exactly what it is. https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in... https://imgur.com/r/ElsaGate https://imgur.com/r/ElsaGate https://www.reddit.com/r/elsagate https://www.reddit.com/r/elsagate (as I said in another comment, there's a lot of crap there, but historically also posts that offer real information, compilations, reports of parents, and so on) https://i.imgur.com/MziRRQw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/MziRRQw.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HfsdvWo.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HfsdvWo.jpg That's just thumbnails, very few in comparison to what is there, not the millions of hours of video, the countless demented 3D animations. Plenty of those involving syringes, too. And that's not even taking the deceptive stuff into account, how they describe everything as family friendly (I remember channel names with phrases like "day care" in them), and all about learning, also offering unused social media accounts as contact address, to seem all above board to anyone who doesn't actually look. Just how the the vile content is often padded in a lot of harmless content, so parents that just take a short glance (or you) might not notice, and so on. Who knows, if you enter "learn colors" or "minecraft monster school" and click around (and I don't just mean once or twice), you might find a lot that's currently being uploaded, or never even was deleted. I genuinely don't want to look because I've seen enough. Among other things it's a DDOS attack on our attention, it exploits our desire to ignore such things, or rationalize them -- so that it looks fine at "first glance", or similar to something benign you already know and therefore benign, especially when watching zero of the X thousands of hours that make up the body of Elsagate; that's in the nature of the subject.