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YouTube To Implement New Guidelines To Protect Minors From Disturbing Content (cnet.com) 95

YouTube will be implementing five new rules to protect minors from disturbing content. They include removing ads from inappropriate videos and blocking predatory comments from videos that feature minors. CNET reports: The new guidelines are as follows:

-Tougher application of Community Guidelines and faster enforcement through technology
-Removing ads from inappropriate videos targeting families
-Blocking inappropriate comments on videos featuring minors
-Providing guidance for creators who make family-friendly content
-Engaging and learning from experts

These rules follow recent reports that expose fundamental flaws in YouTube algorithms and screening protocol, which fail to recognize or pull down videos that feature disturbing imagery but are aimed at children for monetization purposes. Videos featuring children doing innocuous activities like exercising are also riddled with predatory or sexual comments from viewers, something YouTube is attempting to curb with its new guidelines.

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YouTube To Implement New Guidelines To Protect Minors From Disturbing Content

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  • "New Guidelines" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23, 2017 @05:13AM (#55609525)

    I'm guessing they will involve not sharing ad revenue with smaller youtube creators. Just a hunch.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That's not new though. It was called the adpocalypse. Unless you have a REALLY big channel or are in Youtube's in-group you already have a hard time to monetize your content.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23, 2017 @05:19AM (#55609541)

    Skip the filtering and whatnot.

    In case parents give their offsprings access to the digital equivalent of a sharp tool they have to supervise them.

    Oh, I forgot: we're talking about a company in a moron country that lawyered up to make others pay for the own neglect.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      You can't fight the machine.

      What is being quite literately dumped on youtube are computer generated music videos/nursery rhymes/childrens songs that are generated and animated entirely by machine, and it's resulting in some substantially disturbing content. All in the name of trying to milk money from advertisers while doing almost no actual work.

      This is not really aimed at the predatory type of content (eg revenge porn, cyberbullying and similar themes) though I suppose it helps curb that and the doxxing t

    • by rhazz ( 2853871 )
      It seems fairly common sense that the "YouTube Kids" app would have age-appropriate content. It is literally advertised as a version of YouTube fit for kids.

      In case parents give their offsprings access to the digital equivalent of a sharp tool they have to supervise them.

      YouTube Kids containing hidden horror shows is the equivalent of the Disney Channel broadcasting Mickey Mouse murdering his friends. The difference being that there are actually rules for what is ok to be broadcast on TV and the Disney Channel would be fined for that kind of gross neglect.

  • That's cute. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 23, 2017 @05:21AM (#55609547)

    So when are they going to do something about their discrimination based on political affiliation, and having knee-jerk reactions to the tragedy of the week?

    • 1) Check the youtube video by yourself before showing it to your children.
    • 2) View the video always with your children
    • 3) Never forget rules 1) and rules 2)
    • by aevan ( 903814 ) on Thursday November 23, 2017 @05:49AM (#55609611)
      Never! Youtube has replaced the tv as the babysitter for kids.

      Used to be you plunk them infront of the idiot box and let Disney/Tubbies/PolkaDotDoor occupy them while you did housework/cooking/fucked off to the store/entertained adult friends. Now it's you hand each kid a tablet and maybe tell them to use headphones...while you did housework/cooked/fucked off to store/chatted with people online on your own device.

      Don't criticise! They have *reasons*
      • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        I had better not tell you how we do parenting it seems. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't approve :D.

        • by aevan ( 903814 )
          Heh, I'm not of the mind you 24/7 hover the child...it'll annoy the brat, it'll annoy yourself, and stuff DOES need to be done... but I know people who just hand their brats (at 4 and 7) tablets, and tell them to 'go be quiet in another room'...and that's the extent of most the kids' days.

          Karmic hilarity hit with the shitstorm of 'omg they were watching porn [on youtube no less] for the last few months'... with the tirade on THAT interrupted with the younger walking in, parrot racist phrases like some Go
          • by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Thursday November 23, 2017 @06:39AM (#55609731) Journal

            From an outside perspective, that sounds rather funny. ;)

            We park our kids in front of the TV as well. They're three and a half. We let them watch Ultimate Spiderman, X-Men, The Last Airbender (and yes, we know that those are a bit on the heavy side for their age but they cope well) but also My Little Pony, Wickie (if that is even known around your parts) and Shaun the Sheep.

            We don't let them watch anything we haven't or wouldn't watch (so no mindnumbing idiocy like Teletubbies) and when introducing them to things not meant for their age, we keep an eye on them until we're sure they can deal with the content.

            Their language skills aren't as far as some other kids their age I've seen when it comes to proficiency in the language... but next to twin, they also not only speak and understand their mother tongue but English as well.

            IMO, children need to be exposed to things in order to learn. They understand that there are not so nice people and they understand that death exists. They're no worse for having that knowledge.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I was watching a video of GrandPooBear, a streamer on Twitch. Someone in his chat mentioned that they entertain their baby with his streams, to which his response was "don't blame me if his first word is twot-bucket".

        I'm not sure what a twot-bucket is exactly, but from context I gather that this would be an undesirable outcome.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      If youtube wants to do anything to help parents, they should make it so they (parents) can white list the videos their kids can watch.
      It shouldn't be youtube's job to determine what the kids can and can't watch. That is up to the parents.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    > Tougher application of Community Guidelines and faster enforcement through technology

    I wonder if that's the cause behind the mass community-strikes against seemingly random playlists a few days ago.

    They're trying to cram so much into their censorship bots that everything triggers some rule. Every month they add more things to filter, and every month some outrage journalist finds more stuff to be offended by.

  • Trust the corporations to protect your children from things that might make them think.
    • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      Trust the corporations to protect your children from things that might make them think.

      It's the parents' responsibility. If the parents aren't up to the task they should be sterilized.

  • Kids should not live in a deluded distorted reality, never learning to handle actual reality!

    It's like those kids who played computer games all their lives, where only the “fun” parts of serial murder are shown, and all the suffering and horror and consequences of real-world murder are hidden away because they are horrifying.
    And then they get into real combat ... or really just any kind of out-of-the-ordinary interaction in real life ... and they completely collapse, unable to handle any of it,

    • Because our economy doesn't need responsible adults but adult kids with credit cards that are legally fully responsible for their irresponsibility.

  • Thank God (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday November 23, 2017 @07:05AM (#55609773)
    I've been waiting years for somebody to put a stop to Pew di Pie. At last, our long national nightmare is over...
    • The price paid was too high, though.

      Now YouTube is the same boring, bland mix of idiotic home videos and worthless whitewashed commentary TV has become. Anything that could remotely be controversial or an invitation for a debate is gone.

      • there's still stuff like this [youtube.com]. 11 years and counting.
      • yea everything is censerd now youtube is a bunch of people talking to themselves on camera and acting like thats Hollywood level content and dont forget to donate and go to my pateron.
  • How does removing ads protect anybody? I call BS on YT once again.
  • If this was about advertisers being worried they might get associated with "bad" videos, the solution is very trivial: Postpone the payout of any money to content creators by, say, a month. Enough time that a lot of viewers would complain about it being inappropriate for kids, and you have plenty of time not only to remove the video but also yank the account (along with not paying a dime).

    After no more than 2 months, no accounts trying to lure kids for financial gains will exist anymore.

    What's left after th

  • Google's new changes for YouTube are barely lip-service to the problem. It's a PR move, on what is a disturbing & scary problem.

    While I won't let my sons (2, 4 & 6) anywhere near YouTube... I have many parent friends who let their children browse YouTube Kids basically unattended. While this is clearly not a good idea, the fact remains that overworked, exhausted parents are going to do this. That videos of Peppa Pig eating her father & drinking bleach, and other horrid 'cartoons' are slipping pa

  • My kids love Youtube. When they were younger, they would watch stuff like the video of the duck and the lemonade stand. As soon as one got popular, more would show up along the same lines, often with swear words, death of the main character, or sexual acts. I am all for parody, but the knock-offs were clearly made by teenagers who thought it was hilarious that young children would think it was a new cartoon of their favourite character only to see them impaled by a pole. As a result, no more youtube unt
  • The Public: Twitter seems full of bullies, jihadis, pedophiles, and trolls.

    YouTube: Great! We'll crack down on Right-wing content!

    • I mean, the modern American Right has a lot of bullies, pedophiles, and trolls in it, and the jihadis just don't call themselves that.

  • You need humans to watch videos, similar to censors that vet TV content. They want to automate all this and people just find ways to get through, just like they do with captchas and spam filters of any kind.

  • Exactly who's call is this? And will it be regionally implemented.

    • It'll be automated, of course. This is google, so I'd expect something a bit more sophisticated than a bad-word-list, but similar in concept.

  • I had to disable my HOSTS file to view the page. Too much hassle to find the sites involved, but data collection most likely. While proporting to be a protection move for the under aged, it's but one step closer to taking away my parental rights of what I allow or block.

    I'm also waiting to see if this logging in is to be a rule rather than an option. I don't log into Youtube unless I have a real need. If an inappropriate call on a video displays, I'm told I have to log in, at which point that video isn't th

  • Two. Simple. Words. "Parental Involvement." So long as people who should never be allowed NEAR children, let alone "raise" any, depend on technology to raise their kids, this will be ineffective.

Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

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