Continually since 2017, there has been a sinister shadow looming over YouTube. Denoted as ‘Elsagate’, obscene and repulsive content targeted towards children was gaining billions of monetized views, slipping through the platforms' algorithm until large creators such as Philip DeFranco exposed the worst offending channels, bringing it to YouTube’s attention. Their constant battle with cleaning the platform is one of the biggest reasons towards the move to more commercial and family friendly content that coincides with their stricter than ever regulations. However, in a recent purge of channels and videos, some successful creators have found their channels terminated, leaving them jobless with no source of financial income while at the same time, audiences are still unearthing child-exploitative content.
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| Thumbnails of 'Elsagate' videos on YouTube |
As seen in the series of thumbnails above between 2017-2018, the first noted wave of inappropriate content focused on beloved cartoon and Disney characters in the form of live action and animated videos depicting grotesque situations with some videos even described as “soft porn for children.” Content regularly included needles, toilet humour, drugs, alcohol and violence. Controversial channels such as Webs and Tiaras (grossed more than 3.7 billion views before its termination) took full advantage of the algorithm, filling titles and tags with as many famous characters as possible, for example, a video titled ‘Everyone loves Spiderman! w/ Frozen Elsa, Minnie, Spidergirl, Peppa Pig & Joker in Real Life’ gained 20 million views but only 700 comments. The lack of comments and engagement is directly reflective of the child viewership as the algorithm automatically directs them to an endless stream of similar disturbing content. In addition to people mimicking famous characters like Elsa from Frozen and Spiderman, the infamous channels Toy Freaks and Freak Family Vlogs run by Greg Chism and his two young daughters, consistently involves the girls acting out bizarre skits and him provoking them to retaliation. Many viewers describe his videos as borderline abuse and exploitation as the girls are frequently crying and upset. Crazily enough, due to YouTube’s recommendation algorithm that uses tags and titles to auto-play videos, the Guardiansized Toy Freaks as “the 68th largest channel on YouTube” accumulating over 8.5 million subscribers and 8 billion views before finally being taken down. Despite YouTube crunching down on these types of channels, the issue of child exploitation continues to be a prevalent problem.
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| Greg Chism and his daughters from Freak Family Vlogs |
More recently was the child abuse convictionof Michael and Heather Martin aka FamilyOFive on YouTube in July 2018. They were sentenced to five years of probation last year and lost custody of their children for the mistreatment, emotionally and physically, towards them that they documented in their videos. In one video, Martin instructed his eldest child, Jake, to slap his younger sister across the face for failing to perform a water bottle flip correctly. An even more controversial video involved an invisible ink prank with Cody and Alex (their sons) being falsely accused of making the mess. In the video, Cody cries and pleads hysterically after being screamed and sworn at, then accused of lying, with Alex also facing a similar treatment from the parents. Creators using their children as bait for views is an ongoing problem, one that continues to be neglected on the platform and law itself with the Martin’s sentence being reduced earlier this month despite the child abuse violations.
Another recent strain of strange, creepy and inappropriate content involving children on YouTube was discovered by Youtuber PaymoneyWubby. On December 18th 2018 he uploaded the video ‘Creepy Mom Videos Need To Stop’ exploring a number of channels where moms act domestically and do mundane household chores with their children. However, the videos actually feature deliberate and gratuitous flashing underwear shots while they position themselves provocatively while playing with and around little kids. What’s worse is that these channels weren’tin the dark crevices of the platform, in fact they were relatively popular. YouTube’s algorithm and bots are finding it increasingly difficult to monitor all the 300 hours of content uploaded every minute on this ever expanding platform. One of their effective human-based strategies is manually flagging and age restrictingcontent which then cannot be selected into YouTube Kids. However, this method obviously requires actual people to watch harmful content, some of which can still be left on the platform for months before being taken down.
YouTube’s most recent effort was the termination of 1.67 million channels and 58 million videos in late 2018 that violated YouTube’s child safety and harassment guidelines or involved adult sexual content. The deletion utilised YouTube’s automated detection tools to quickly identify spam, extremist content and nudity however, these bots, as evident from the ‘Adpocalypse’, are prone to demonetize and target genuine creators who only use the platform for creativity and entertainment. The biggest example that has sparked outcry in the community is the termination of both Mumkey Jones' channels.
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| Momkey Jones Gif |
Mumkey Jones uploaded dark style of humour skit videos, often wearing the monkey mask depicted in the above gif. He often joked about suicide, death, autism, depression and other similar subject matter placing his content in the riskier category. Audiences celebrated Jones’ less family-friendly content as a way of exploring the dark subject matter that the creator himself experienced. However, this all came crumbling down on December 11th2018 when Jones was given 6 strikes collectively on both his channels; even a strike on a private video that had no views, all in the space of one day. These 6 strikes immediately terminated his channels, removing his revenue source completely without a say. In his response video on a new account the following day, Jones describes the event as “a catastrophe on both my life and career." Despite countless back and forth appeals directly to YouTube on Twitter, his channel remains terminated. His content, though risky, was satirical, thought provoking and for comedic effect. He has now started a Patreon that has received unprecedented support in order to gain financial aid.
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| Tweet conversation between Momkey Jones and YouTube |
The question this all raises is why isn’t YouTube focusing its attention on the vast array of inappropriate child aimed content on the platform rather than scrutinising channels that pushed limits and discussed complicated subjects? Instead of supporting the channels who legitimised the status of YouTube, they are propping up celebrities and continue to cover up the dangerous content development that has been going on for over 2 years. Of course you cannot blame YouTube for being anxious, faced before their corporate supporters and using bots to eradicate any content that could damage their reputation, but it’s another example of YouTube’s lack of control and most importantly, lack of compassion towards creators.
