This saga began on the 17th of February when YouTuber Matt Watson uploaded a video titled “YouTube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children, and it’s Being Monetized (2019)” as shown above. What he discovered was a wormhole of hundreds if not thousands of videos of underage children. Furthermore, he exposed how easy it is to stumble upon these videos and once clicked, it is the only content that is recommended in YouTube’s algorithm. They’ll often feature titles with the words “gymnastics”, “yoga”, “pool day”, “popsicle” or “Twister” but these videos themselves don’t contain any sexual content, it’s the comments that depict a whole different story.
Matt Watson reveals the signifiers of these preyed upon videos including an activity called ‘timestamping’ in which viewers mark in the comment section specific moments in which these young children are in vulnerable, comprising positions. They are even exchanging social media profiles in the comments and sharing links to child pornography which is going completely undetected by YouTube. After the incredibly dangerous wave of ‘Elsagate’ videos last year (as previously discussed in this blog), unearthing another subculture of fetishising children is a huge disappointment and shock to the platform. Reputable companies such as Disney, Epic Games (developers of the viral hit game Fortnite) and AT&T have removed their ads from the platform according to The Verge, since the discovery of these paedophilic comments.
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| Example of 'timestamping' on one of these videos. |
YouTube has been taking many positive actions in hopes of making the platform a safe space for children and creators including the removal of tens of millions of videos, terminating over 400 channels and reporting illegal comments to law enforcement all in 48 hours of this being brought to their attention. In addition, the media giant is hiring additional social workers, child development specialists, prosecutors and former CIA employees to help handle the issue. One action that has caused panic in the community however, is the ability for inappropriate comments to demonetise a video, stripping it of the ability to make AdSense revenue even if that video is family friendly. In fact, if a video simply contains a child it has the potential to be demonetised, sparking outrage in the Family Vlogging community. A creator who has been marred by this is Christian family blogger Jessica Ballinger.
Jessica and her husband Christopher, along with their five children, share videos of daily life including their 5-year-old son’s gymnastic videos. Since YouTube has taken extreme action with videos involving children, she has been in disarray with all of her son’s videos demonetised in one day and YouTube disabling comments across their channel despite being home to one of the most positive communities on the platform.
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| Series of Tweets by Jessica Ballinger regarding her demonitisation. |
In response to Jessica, YouTube acknowledged that while these clips themselves were ad-friendly, in light of the recent controversy, any content – including comments – that endangers minors registers as abhorrent and will be punished.
YouTube appeasing both advertisers and creators is a highly-charged issue but enabling a video to have all its financial potential taken not due to the content but the comments, is a colossal leap in the wrong direction. It’s a fast, panicked response to companies pulling their ads, implementing a system that can be weaponised to attack channels maliciously. The unfair extortion of copy-strikingvideos has been a vast problem for months with anyone having the ability to strike and obtain AdSense revenue from any video without a justifiable claim; the capability to purposely leave inappropriate comments is now another method to attack creators. YouTuber ImAllexx uploaded a video on this issue discussing the fact that YouTube has a blacklisting system in place so certain words and phrases are instantly removed from the comment section, however, YouTube is withholding these new terms that get videos demonetised. They are punishing creators for an aspect of producing videos they have absolutely no control over. If they wanted the obliteration of paedophilic comments and culture on the platform, why not remove the ability for these comments to even appear in the first place?
It’s a question puzzling many and a balancing act YouTube is still unable to achieve. Once again, creators are now having to adjust and find new approaches to retain a consistent income with YouTube continually becoming a more hostile place despite its efforts, some notably positive, to make it a safe, entertaining haven for the many.
