LOGAN PAUL is a broadcaster with an audience of almost 16 million people, but until recently, you had probably never heard of him.
Paul sparked controversy earlier this month after uploading a YouTube video of himself gawking at a body in Japan鈥檚 Aokigahara forest, which is known for the high number of suicides that have occurred there. The video was viewed millions of times before it was taken down. Paul has and YouTube has , who is one of the most popular personalities on the site. It has also .
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Paul鈥檚 large audience of children and teenagers made the incident all the more worrying. 鈥淟ogan, you鈥檙e still my hero,鈥� said one young fan at the end of a much-viewed reaction video. But this is not the first time YouTube has faced criticism for the level of oversight it applies to content aimed at young people. Should we expect the world鈥檚 largest video platform to do more?
It is a question increasingly in need of an answer, considering that YouTube is now the number one place where kids of all ages consume video content. Nearly half of 3- to 4-year-olds in the UK watch content on the site, . Viewing figures rise with age and 90 per cent of 12 to 15s watch YouTube videos. Among this age group, it is a better known brand than the BBC and ITV (the UK鈥檚 largest traditional broadcasters), and Netflix.
Three years ago, YouTube decided to target this growing audience more directly with a new app, YouTube Kids, offering a selection of content automatically picked from the main site. 鈥淭he app makes it safer and easier for children to find videos on topics they want to explore,鈥� a YouTube blog post about the app.
It hasn鈥檛 quite worked out that way. YouTube Kids is riddled with material that would never be shown on children鈥檚 TV, says UK presenter , who has worked for Nickelodeon and CBBC, two children鈥檚 channels.
He points to a on YouTube Kids in which a man throws a dish of boiling water into the air on a very cold day, turning it into snow.
鈥淭here鈥檚 absolutely no way Nickelodeon or CBBC would ever show someone doing that without an awful lot of caveats and someone explaining it鈥檚 dangerous,鈥� he says. This sort of video, without profanity, nudity or other obvious red lines, is exactly the kind that might not be picked up by an algorithm.
Watch the algorithm
But some have found more disturbing content on YouTube Kids in the past. In November, a by writer and artist James Bridle highlighted the presence of upsetting and violent parodies of children鈥檚 cartoons on the app.
Petrie believes YouTube has neglected its responsibilities here. He argues the site should radically change the way it monitors YouTube Kids and only provide videos that have been checked by a human moderator.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 care if that means less content,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not appropriate to have software decide what鈥檚 OK for kids.鈥�
YouTube Kids warns parents that it is not flawless. 鈥淚t鈥檚 possible your child may find something that you don鈥檛 want them to watch,鈥� says a message during the app set-up. But given we have no idea how these videos are chosen, it is hard for parents to know how much they should worry (see 鈥�What should parents do?鈥�).
Google, which owns YouTube, declined to answer specific questions put to it by 快猫短视频 about how its algorithms select content for children, or how it responds to videos that have been flagged as inappropriate. 鈥淲e work to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family-friendly as possible and take feedback very seriously,鈥� says a Google spokesperson. 鈥淔lagged videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don鈥檛 belong in the app are removed.鈥�
Opaque, algorithmic decision-making is concerning wherever it occurs, but Google鈥檚 lack of transparency when it comes to children is particularly problematic, says Sonja Jutte of the NSPCC, a UK children鈥檚 charity. 鈥淸Self-regulation] has clearly failed to protect children from inappropriate content and behaviours,鈥� she says.
YouTube鈥檚 challenge is to balance an unprecedented volume of content with reasonable standards. More than 400 hours of footage is .
Last month, Google in an effort to better police hate speech, misinformation and content that might be harmful to children. 鈥淲e have welcomed that,鈥� says Jutte. 鈥淗owever, that isn鈥檛 a substitute for transparency.鈥�
Most people in the industry agree that some form of automation is the only way to moderate large sites, with algorithms acting as gatekeepers that flag unsuitable content to be checked by humans. But if we are putting the algorithms in charge, we should know how they work.
鈥淭he safest thing in the world would be to have someone look at every single thing that comes through, but in reality that wouldn鈥檛 be possible,鈥� says Peter Maude at content-moderating firm , which works with the likes of Disney, Coca-Cola and the BBC.
鈥淵ouTube Kids is riddled with material that would never be shown on children鈥檚 TV鈥�
A more sophisticated approach, he says, is to monitor the comments posted beneath a video. The footage itself may be deemed innocuous by an algorithm, but if people are responding with outraged comments, that could be a sign that it needs to be checked by a human, even if no-one has gone to the trouble of flagging the video as unsuitable.
Joshua Buxbaum at , another content-filtering firm, says that videos can be broken into a selection of frames for checking by humans. They can also be sped up to help human moderators process content more quickly. Despite this, he says the cost of checking every video safely and properly on a large site would be 鈥渁stronomical鈥�.
He鈥檚 not wrong. Paying humans just $10 an hour to review new YouTube videos would cost more than $2 billion a year, almost half Google鈥檚 parent firm Alphabet鈥檚 2017 profits, assuming they watch at regular speed. But do kids really need access to so much content?
Publishers like Netflix and the BBC manage to produce hundreds of hours of safe, child-friendly videos, more than any individual could possibly watch. YouTube, of course, doesn鈥檛 even have to pay production costs 鈥� most of its creators get paid through ad revenue sharing after the video has been made. So why can鈥檛 it ensure that YouTube Kids only contains safe content, just as its rivals do?
快猫短视频 put that question to Google, but it declined to comment. That is probably because the answer lies in Google鈥檚 long-held position that it is a platform, not a publisher, and thus merely provides an opportunity for others to distribute content. 鈥淥ur mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world,鈥� says YouTube鈥檚 about page.
To define itself as publisher might give Google an entirely new problem: accusations of censorship, because it would need to determine what content is and isn鈥檛 allowed on its services. In the messy world of adults, that鈥檚 not desirable, but for children, perhaps editorial control is exactly what is required.
For Petrie, an extra safe approach, no matter the expense, will always be the only acceptable one when it comes to providing content for young viewers.
鈥淪omeone like me sounds a bit like a fuddy duddy,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 just a case of caring about the people who consume your stuff.鈥�
What should parents do?
Parents and guardians should not be expected to police all content that their child might encounter online.
鈥淚鈥檓 getting quite tired of the parent-blaming going on, saying parents should be there every minute of the day 鈥� we never said that for comics or reading books,鈥� says Sonia Livingstone, a psychologist at the London School of Economics who studies children鈥檚 use of digital media.
But given the disturbing videos that can be found on the web, parents may feel they have no choice. On YouTube Kids (see main article), parents can block videos or channels they don鈥檛 want children to see, disable search or set timers for maximum allowed screen time. In general, though, Livingstone says parental controls on such services are 鈥渧ery limited鈥�.
Many parents simply hope that content-blocking software will keep their children safe. But one of more than 500 children aged 12 to 15 found no evidence that such attempts to filter material decreased the likelihood of having negative experiences online.
Livingstone says that parents shouldn鈥檛 get upset if they see their child watching something inappropriate. Instead, she suggests that it is much more productive to discuss the material and explore their child鈥檚 response to it when they are ready.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淐hild鈥檚 play?鈥�
