YouTube is ‘actively enabling’ the spread of exploitative content, report finds

Videos featuring exposed genitals and other body parts of children as young as five are pervasive on YouTube and watched and commented on in huge numbers, a Wired report has found.

The videos, some of which generate millions of views, are often accompanied by predatory comments from people sharing the timestamps of when genitals are exposed or when a child does the splits.

Per Wired, some of the videos in question are exploitative in nature, while others are videos of children — sometimes uploaded by the children themselves — doing regular activities such as yoga and gymnastics.

The investigation found that YouTube’s algorithm actively recommended videos popular with predatory commentators. “Those videos – typically of children simply going about their lives – were (…) recommended by an algorithm that decided within a few videos that our main interest was in little girls flashing their crotches,” the Wired report states. 

Some comments on these videos include recommendations for other videos featuring children.   Comment threads — which are often not in English — include people exchanging WhatsApp numbers with the promise of sharing more content off YouTube.

The report also finds that these videos are often monetised by YouTube, as they are in many cases accompanied by pre-roll and banner ads from major companies. This is despite YouTube’s own claim that the platform is “99 percent effective at ensuring that adverts only appear on appropriate content.”

YouTube announced in 2017 they would be blocking “inappropriate sexual or predatory comments on videos featuring minors,” but according to Wired, many videos featuring children did not have comments disabled. 

YouTube previously addressed the issue of predatory commentators in 2017, when it removed more than 150,000 videos, and said that, “Content that endangers children is abhorrent and unacceptable to us.”

A YouTube spokesperson told Wired: “When we find content that is in violation of our policies, we immediately stop serving ads or remove it altogether.”

YouTube did not immediately respond to Mashable’s request for comment.