'Something Is Wrong On the Internet' (medium.com) 365
"Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatize, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level," writes James Bridle. From the article: To begin: Kid's YouTube is definitely and markedly weird. I've been aware of its weirdness for some time. Last year, there were a number of articles posted about the Surprise Egg craze. Surprise Eggs videos depict, often at excruciating length, the process of unwrapping Kinder and other egg toys. That's it, but kids are captivated by them. There are thousands and thousands of these videos and thousands and thousands, if not millions, of children watching them. [...] What I find somewhat disturbing about the proliferation of even (relatively) normal kids videos is the impossibility of determining the degree of automation which is at work here; how to parse out the gap between human and machine. The New York Times, last week: Parents and children have flocked to Google-owned YouTube Kids since it was introduced in early 2015. The app's more than 11 million weekly viewers are drawn in by its seemingly infinite supply of clips, including those from popular shows by Disney and Nickelodeon, and the knowledge that the app is supposed to contain only child-friendly content that has been automatically filtered from the main YouTube site. But the app contains dark corners, too, as videos that are disturbing for children slip past its filters, either by mistake or because bad actors have found ways to fool the YouTube Kids algorithms. In recent months, parents like Ms. Burns have complained that their children have been shown videos with well-known characters in violent or lewd situations and other clips with disturbing imagery, sometimes set to nursery rhymes.
What a terrible headline (Score:5, Informative)
"Something is wrong on the Internet" does not immediately translate to "so let me tell you about these absolutely bizarre and potentially illegal Youtube videos."
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I'm still trying to put a finger on what the problem here is. You might as well say a video of Andy Kaufman reading the Great Gatsby is a form of abuse.
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If Richard Wagner is played in the background I would agree!
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It wouldn't be the same without Flight of Valkyries!
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Well, then parents should just turn to shows that they already know only feature wholesome content, such as LazyTown [youtube.com].
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Nothing illegal about fair use respins/parody showing well-known characters in dark situations.
Google should've known better. If you want to make sure content will be kid-safe, then engage human curators;
Or at least require trusted creators to self-rate their content before it can appear in YT for kids.
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It's an XKCD reference.
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It's an XKCD reference.
The line was supposed to be, as a response to a woman who asks her frazzled husband at 3 am as he maniacally types away in his mancave, "Somebody is wrong on the Internet!"
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If the idea that somebody would make animations of cartoon characters having sex makes James Bridle question his believes about the Internet... about time?
These things are not really surprising. If someone trusts some automatic filter Google installed on YouTube to shelter their kids, they should probably be in remedial Internet 101 in the seat next to Bridle.
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The problem is you can’t trust an algorithm to determine is something is suitable or not. The internet has a lot of content however it is managed by an algorithm so odd gaps get by. Where in the old days all public content was censored by a select group of humans.
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Funny)
The same parents that watch afternoon talk and court shows and scripted reality shows?
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Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Insightful)
However, that isn't the only problem here. There is also the problem of being exposed to and having to deal with the very idea of violence and physical harm. To you or me, we are probably desensitized to such an idea. People die every day and we know it. A child hasn't processed this kind of reality and the first time they do process it, it will be hard even if they know it is unreal. This is because, they still have to address in their minds that it can happen in reality.
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Must have been a "modern" psychologist bullshitting you like that.
I don't remember the first time I was exposed to the concept of death, but it must have been before I was 4, when I buried my dead cat with help from my grandparents. I remember having been familiar with the concept of disease (cat died because it was sick) and physical harm (chicken and pigs being slaughtered for food, for example).
At the countryside, kids are exposed to these things from start. If kids reach the age of 3-4 and are not yet exposed to reality of this kind (living things die, harm may happen to them, etc) then they're not raised well. Helicopter parenting is a plague - remember that.
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't remember the first time I was exposed to the concept of death, but it must have been before I was 4, when I buried my dead cat with help from my grandparents.
Yes. With your grandparents or another adult right beside you. Not some anonymous asshole from 4chan who gets off on scarring you. Context.
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Mental health professionals avoid having to tell parents they are terrible at parenting by diagnosing children with ADD or Aspergers or some other intangible mental health problem and sending them home with head candy drugs so they'll stop coming back.
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You mistake "traumatic" with "important", or rather a development keystone.
I vividly remember burying my cat as well as going to a great country fair. Are you saying the country fair was traumatic too?
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I guess today's children are getting more stupid with every generation somehow.
I grew up in the days of cartoons every afternoon and Saturday all morning....in the days of NON- censored Loony Tunes.....I knew full well at the youngest age I have memories that cartoon violence was different than reality.
I knew that the anvil that hit Wily Coyote was not real and would kill a real person or animal.
Hell, I remember one old Bugs Bunny cartoon....where he saw Elmer asleep against a tree...and Bugs whipped out a bottle of sleeping pills, labeled "Take Deeze and Dose"....gulped them down and fell asleep there too so he could enter Elmers dream and mess with him there.
I saw this same cartoon not long back...and that part with the sleeping pills? It was fucking edited OUT?!?!
Seriously? We can't let kids see that anymore? The snowflakes are now too sensitive, and can't know cartoon from reality?
Ugh....
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:4, Funny)
I never saw Pinochio. Thanks for the spoiler alert, asshole.
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Even more general, many of the Grimm Fairy Tales (and I think Aesop Fables) were very adult.
I remember several times I've seen books published about the 'censored' Fairy Tales.
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If you trust the Wikipedia info, they were *called* "Children's and Household Tales", though the "Composition" info following says "they were not regarded as suitable for children, both for the scholarly information included and the subject matter." Various info, like sexual references, were removed, but violence was increased! (So that's not just a US phenomenon!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms'_Fairy_Tales/ [wikipedia.org]
Han Solo shot (first and last) (Score:3)
Well, I think both the baby boomers and the GenX have gone senile so the millennials through no fault of their own are less capable to face difficulties in life.
The Han Solo story illustrates this perfectly. Lucas commented that he never expected so much outrage for changing that scene. "If people want Han Solo to be murderer (!?!?!?) then so be it".
Now wait a minute! What you say is that our children must be taught that if they have a professional murderer pointing a gun at them from 1m who has stated alr
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The problem is that YouTube is being cheap. Rather than hire humans to do manual reviews, they want to rely on flawed AI. Just pay people to do it while the AI shadows, until you get it working properly.
But no, they want kids to beta test it for them. They want YouTube creators to put their livelihoods on the line so they can save a few bucks.
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However, that isn't the only problem here. There is also the problem of being exposed to and having to deal with the very idea of violence and physical harm.
Meh. I had 14 stitches put into my face when I was three years old. It traumatized me only in the literal sense, not the psychological sense. If anything, I learned that my parents and doctors were there to take care of me. How old do YOU figure a child needs to be to learn about "the very idea of violence and physical harm"?
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Yeah, I think it's also worth mentioning that "explaining things to children" might not work the way people think it does.
I'm not sure how to explain for those who don't already know what I'm talking about, but a 5 year old isn't going to be able to understand certain kinds of things. Kids memorize things that they hear, and they try to mimic adults and say the "right thing". They'll parrot back the things they've been told, and so a lot of people think that the kids have taken in the information and und
Re:What a terrible headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Well,
kids (depending on age) are not scared by macabre jokes/cartoons.
When I grew up we had a joke type called 'alle Kinder', aka 'all children', sorry I can not make perfect rhymes, as I lack knowledge about english names, but I try:
All the children are watching the burning house,
But not _Klaus_ (should rhyme with house)
he looks out of the window (in german it would rhyme with house: 'er schaut raus')
All the children are up to the neck in mud/swamp
but not Porter,
he is shorter.
All the children watch the burning car
just not Kell
he is in the seat belt.
I don't recall anyone getting psychological problems from such jokes ... but well, we are a tough generation! (*flex*)
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We had those in Denmark, too. They were hilarious, right up until the effectively last one made. Never heard them again since.
The rhyme?
They rhymed 'mom and pa' to 'Scandinavian Star', a cruise liner that burned out with 159 dead.
Suddenly the jokes weren't all that funny anymore.
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That was of course a tragedy!
The problem with macabre jokes is, they easy get ditastful.
I still remember the first two my father told me (I was about 12 or 14)
I found them 'shake head' but still funny at that time.
Sometimes I tell them, but this is not the platform :)
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Q. How do you unload a truck full of dead babies?
A. Use a pitchfork...
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Oh gawd, I forgot about dead baby jokes...
Q: What's the difference between a truckload of dead babies and a truckload of bowling balls?
A: you can't unload bowling balls with a pitchfork.
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Q: When unloading dead babies with a pitchfork how do you know when you run into a live one that slipped through.
A: (Gesturing pitchforking motions) Dead, dead, dead, (hands shake while forking) live, dead, dead, dead...
Ms. Burns (Score:5, Insightful)
quit showing your kids stuff you don't like, you are the parent and are responsible for what they consume you dink
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How about you give little Johnny or little Suzie a fscking BOOK to read?
That's a win on SOOO many fronts....it's what my folks did and sure helped me develop.
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omg how can you watch that crap? when my niece turns on children shows on netflix I can hardly bare to stay in the house. that is some mindless annoying shit on there.
What bar on Amazon Video Direct (Score:2)
However, Netflix and Amazon have a pretty high bar on quality for content to get on there.
Anyone with a bank account and a tax ID can upload video to Amazon Video Direct [amazon.com], so long as it's not obscene, not infringing, professionally produced [amazon.com], captioned, 720p or 1080p, and not high motion [amazon.com]. What "pretty high bar" are you referring to?
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What "pretty high bar" are you referring to?
The one you just mentioned about actually vetting content, and not allowing anything obscene, maybe?
It sure seems to me that Amazon does more to regulate content (intelligently, anyway) than YouTube.
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Amazon also has a policy [amazon.com] against "Content that is freely available on the web, including content with open/public copyrights." This appears to forbid free cultural works [freedomdefined.org] from its platform. Do you consider it an acceptable tradeoff to be exposing your child to all proprietary video all the time, knowing that your child will be forever barred from ever creating anything substantially similar to anything he has seen on Amazon?
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Why say "taxpayer" (Score:2)
As a taxpayer, I demand the State does something about this internet.
Why would you say 'taxpayer'? It has no relationship to citizenship...
Both citizens and immigrants rely on services provided by the government, and taxation funds these services.
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paying taxes has no relationship to citizenship
Correct. They are orthogonal.
Paying taxes is a fee for a service. Neither the service nor the fee has a relationship to citizenship, but my point is that it doesn't need to. That's why Anonymous Coward #55501671 used the word "taxpayer" in preference to "citizen", as both taxpaying citizens and taxpaying immigrants demand a competent service in exchange for their tax money.
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As a taxpayer, I demand the State infringe your right to bear arms, and also quarter a soldier in your house during peacetime.
medium.com (Score:2)
Did somebody bring Happy Tree Friends back? (Score:5, Funny)
(Here is some older example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] )
It's almost like.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost like some one is profiting from the effects of these attacks our childrens' minds. Like some one wants people to grow up and be triggered into hyperactivity by certain cues from screaming colors and sounds.
*glances at media-driven political feud*
I wonder why???????
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Like some one wants people to grow up and be triggered into hyperactivity by certain cues from screaming colors and sounds.
Fruity Oaty Bars [youtube.com], anyone?
Obligatory xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
https://xkcd.com/386/ [xkcd.com]
The Problem Of Spam, this time with video. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Lady parts or flower parts?
AI will never get 100% on that problem.
Easy To Turn Off (Score:2, Insightful)
Turn it off, make your kid go outside. Voila.
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Give your kids plenty of eggs and toilet paper and point out any neighbors that complain too much. I miss the good old days when kids were hell-raisers and suburban terrorists.
Imperfect Internet Filters !== bad internet (Score:2)
Reminds me of the 80's (Score:2)
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The difference is in the statistical processes, so to speak. You hear that song a few times a day and you think it's cool and you play air guitar and what not but mostly you do your kid stuff. With this, the kid is seeing many bot-created hypnotizing repetitive actions over and over. The total "nerve system load", if such thing existed, is way heavier with these videos -- far more structured and laser focused on the kids' brains/minds.
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Nah, I was too busy playing D&D.
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Obviously you've never listened to Justin Beiber.
Something is wrong? With...what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh... (Score:4, Insightful)
How Hard Is It To Curate Youtube KIDS Properly??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How Hard Is It To Curate Youtube KIDS Properly? (Score:4)
Can you imagine the trauma stories that would come out of that office? Have you ever actually sat and watched legit children's programming? I doubt the smut-porn police would last more than a week.
Seriously though, if you replace the babysitter with a computer, your gonna get trolled. EVERY. TIME.
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Or, come on, at least offer an whitelist option [google.com] on the Youtube Kids app?
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Is it so bloody hard to hire 500 people whose job it is to watch the videos and determine whether they are suitable for kids?
Well, I mean, the government only lets them import so main H-1B workers every year...
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HR Pufnstuf was the best kids show.
disturbing imagery, sometimes set to nursery rhym (Score:2, Informative)
Ring around a rosie, is supposed to be an allegory of the black death.
Some more such stuff [mentalfloss.com]
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Snopes and some other "experts" say it's not about the black death. I just learned this earlier today... man the matrix i mean internet is weird like that.
https://www.snopes.com/languag... [snopes.com]
An example (Score:5, Informative)
There is a video where gentle music plays and cutesy version of my little ponies slide across the screen into a box full of cotton wool. That is the original version. Goes for about 2 minutes. Sounds like torture when described like that but the kids liked it.
Someone released a version where about 90 seconds in the box of cotton wool is replaced with a box of nails and the pony is eviscerated by them. There is also a change in the audio to a distorted "Oh Fuck". And it then goes back to the cutesy version.
No other reason to do that then to get past the automated filters and mess with little kids.
Re:An example (Score:4, Insightful)
No other reason to do that then to get past the automated filters and mess with little kids.
Yup, some people are just plain ol' tacky assholes.
What I don't get is how people think a website that literally anyone can upload a video to is a good babysitter for their kid. I mean, you wouldn't set up a playpen in the middle of Union Station and just leave little Johnny Bastard to the wolves, would you?
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What I don't get is how people think a website that literally anyone can upload a video to is a good babysitter for their kid
Because that website's marketing implies that it's kid friendly. It even looks fine to a parent taking a quick pass over the type of content their child is likely to be exposed to. The bad content is deliberately obfuscated by bad actors.
A better analogy would be advertising a service as a daycare, having a nice front to fool parents, and then leaving little Johnny in a playpen in the middle of Union Station. Yeah, the parent could have tried harder to vet the service caring for their kid, but the service
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Strong element of Corporate Cronyism. (Score:2)
Regardless of the merits of the detailed examples, a lot of the article just struct me as saying, "If it's not from Disney you can't trust it!" Never mind your local children book authors! They may be up to something no good! CONSUME ONLY DISNEY.
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Question my beliefs? (Score:4, Funny)
oh wait ... (Score:4)
... so it is OK for me to not let my kids have smart phones and for me to police their internet usage?
Because the rest of the time that supposedly makes us backward freaks.
I'm not responsible for your kids (Score:2, Insightful)
They're your kids. Not mine. And neither I, nor "the internet", nor even a school, is responsible for raising them. You are. If you cannot be assed to take care of your kids, use rubbers.
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Now, apply that to old people, and watch that attitude do a 180 the moment you become old and exhaust your savings (if you have any).
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I think the idea is that old people deserve the babysitting, since they've already spent a lifetime contributing to society.
Now get off my lawn :D
Internet is not the problem, you are (Score:3, Insightful)
And it should stay that way, as it should reflect all humans in this planet, not just middle class parents.
The problem is ppl like you that think the internet could replace you as a parent.
What you should do is to filter what your kind kids see, by seeing it 1st. In the same way you don't send you kid alone to the cinema. And while you do that, try to make your kids to think about what they are, in order to grow a strong personality and be able to face the internet and the street and a younger age.
It's not 'something', it's the Internet itself (Score:2)
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The Internet has been twisted and subverted from being the font of information and a vastly useful tool for humanity in general, into something driven by greed and the very worst that humanity has to offer
So... I take it you were never on Usenet?
Missing the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a lot of commentators are missing the point of the original article. The fact that kids might see somewhat inappropriate videos is just a symptom of the underlying problem.
The problem is that the information we see and content we view is increasingly the result of the interactions of various algorithms. You see this in the way Google inadvertently promotes conspiracy theories. The content itself starts to become more and more automated as every video or article just ends up being a reconfiguration of popular keywords. I suppose the dystopic end-game if this were in an episode of Black Mirror would have everyone completely disassociated from reality as all information they consume is simply generated and and pushed out to them by various bots interacting.
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I really wish that YouTube did this differently (Score:2, Interesting)
If YouTube would put the hosting channel into the URL I could filter based on that.
I don't know how many times I let my son watch some Etholabs video and then came back and he had clicked on another Minecraft video from someone that was... less in control of their vocabulary.
If I could have white-listed YouTube.com/Ethoslab instead of YouTube.com, I could have prevented that, but they don't include the channel in the URL so I can't.
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Whitelist, not blacklist.
Something Is Wrong On the Internet (Score:2)
You must be new. Welcome to the Internet.
Kids and internets (Score:2)
One site or app is poorly curated (Score:5, Insightful)
Big company decides that bots are "good enough". They aren't. That's all this is. As bad as it is to sit your kids in front of the old fashioned tube, as much as you might complain about the FCC, there was pretty much zero chance that we were going to see Oscar, Big Bird, and the Count going at it in a 3-way. That's because real human adults were in charge, and were paid what they were worth. The Internet isn't broken. A bunch of greedy pigs just paid some cheap coders far less to create something much less safe, then a bunch of lazy parents sat their kids down in front of it. The results were predictable.
But the conservatives! (Score:3)
What you have to do (Score:2)
Actually, (Score:2)
Nothing is wrong with the internet. But I've long held the belief that something is wrong with people.
The internet is for porn (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that's what they're referring to, is probably porn type material with what normally are children's characters, or story-lines with lewdness added.
And while I'm the type of person who thinks if something someone else enjoys isn't hurting anything, then fine. But I think some of this type of material is banned in some countries, and perhaps this is why, because potential for accidental exposure for children. There's some insane shit out there that you just can't unsee once you've seen it. A
Wait... (Score:2)
...you mean I can't just plop my kid in a chair, throw my ipad at them and tell them to watch youtube until I'm ready to deal with them?
Well, fuck, why didn't anyone tell me that BEFORE I started producing womb fruit?
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