Johann   tag: ElsaGate

Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale

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What concerns me is not just the violence being done to children here, although that concerns me deeply. What concerns me is that this is just one aspect of a kind of infrastructural violence being done to all of us, all of the time, and we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects.

https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2

Greenberg said that it only takes one video with questionable behavior to start creating psychological scars that can last a lifetime.

“I don’t think this needs to happen repeatedly for kids to register that this is very wrong,” Greenberg said. “And then what goes first is trust, because your parents are supposed to be taking care of you and then because they’re not doing that, the world becomes a frightening place.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtuber-toy-freaks-may-cause-psychological-damage-his-kids-experts-n823431

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YouTube hopes to gain something from the Disney brand as well, namely credibility among parents, many of whom aren’t thrilled at setting their younger children loose on a site where the videos can be ragged and provocative and the comments even more so. The company wants to compete with cable television for ad dollars by adding more professional videos.

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Disney is an important ally for YouTube, which walks a careful line when it comes to attracting children; the site's Terms of Service require users to be at least 13 years old to watch videos and register for an account, though younger children routinely access the site. YouTube also needs Disney because it remains locked in a legal battle with Viacom, which owns the other major player in this arena, Nickelodeon, and keeps its videos (aside from some promotional material) off YouTube.

Correction: November 9, 2011

An article on Monday about an online video series being developed by Disney and YouTube referred incorrectly to YouTube’s position on the use of the site by children. The company’s terms of service specify that users should be at least 13 years old to watch videos and must register for an account. It is not the case that YouTube lacks a policy regulating access by children.