YouTube deletes 400 channels over pedophilia issues, as advertisers dump platform

YouTube is in crisis mode yet again as the online video giant announced it had banned more than 400 channels and disabled comments on tens of millions of videos following a growing YouTube controversy concerning child exploitation.

However, many major brands, like Disney, AT&T, Nestle, and Fortnite are jumping ship and halting all YouTube advertising in its wake.

Over the weekend, a YouTube video highlighting child predators’ rampant use of the platform had gone viral.

YouTuber Matt Watson posted the video walking users through how a simple YouTube search can easily uncover “soft” pedophilia rings on the video service.

Read also: FAKE NEWS: UK MPs call for stricter regulation of Facebook

Child exploitation is clearly an internet-wide issue, however, Watson’s video explored how YouTube’s recommendation algorithm works to add a unique problem for the site. As shown in Watson’s viral upload, a search for popular YouTube video niches, such as “bikini haul,” leads the platform to recommend similar content to viewers.

If a user clicks on a single recommended video featuring a child, the viewer can get sucked into a “wormhole,” as Watson calls it, where YouTube’s recommendation algorithm will proceed to push content to the viewer which strictly features children.

These recommended videos then become inundated with comments from child predators.
Often times, these comments directly hyperlink timecodes from within the video.

The linked timecodes often forwards a user to a point in the video where the minor may, innocently, be found in compromising positions.

On these video pages, these commenters also share their contacts so that they can trade child pornography with other users off of YouTube’s platform.

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