Current Events > YouTubes algorithm is reportedly helping pedophiles find home videos of kids

(+) Yeah! (+)

YouTubes algorithm is reportedly facilitating pedophiles by recommending videos of young children to them. YouTube announced Monday that its changing its livestreaming policy amid news of the reports.

Someone who watches sexually themed content on the platform could slowly be presented with videos of younger and younger women before eventually landing on videos of children, according to a team of researchers at the Harvard Universitys Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society

A Brazilian woman was informed that an innocent home video of her 10-year-old daughter and a friend playing in a backyard pool suddenly garnered more than 400,000 views after being recommended to those who had watched videos of prepubescent, partially clothed children, according to one of the researchers examples.

Its YouTubes algorithm that connects these channels, research co-author Jonas Kaiser, wrote. Thats the scary thing.

After being alerted to the issue, the company banned younger minors, who are 13 and younger, from livestreaming without an adult present.

YouTube also removed several videos and appeared to alter its algorithm, according to the New York Times.

A YouTube spokesperson directed the Daily Dot to its blog post addressing the discovery. The post details the companys new livestreaming policy and other work to protect minors and families.

In March, it disabled comments on videos of children after it was learned that pedophiles were sharing time stamps to sections of video that showed nudity.

The vast majority of videos featuring minors on YouTube, including those referenced in recent news reports, do not violate our policies and are innocently posteda family creator providing educational tips, or a parent sharing a proud moment, the company wrote.

The company also reduced recommendations of borderline content, including videos featuring minors in risky situations.

The researchers argue that YouTube refuses to disable its recommendation system altogether on videos of children because doing so would hurt its independent creators.

The issue is not the first related to minors for the website.

The discovery of a softcore pedophile ring on the platform by a YouTuber in February led Disney to stop purchasing ads on the site.

A spokesperson told the Daily Dot at the time that it hired child safety experts who are dedicated to catching those who wish to harm children. The company also said it terminates thousands of underage accounts each week to help combat the problem.

https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/youtubes-algorithm-pedophiles/
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is Jared running youtube? jfc
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holy shit
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Well no shit, the algorithm is (supposedly) designed to recommend videos similar to what you normally watch, if you normally watch a bunch of videos of kids doing innocent kid stuff it's going to recommend more of that to you.

I mean, they can tweak it so videos featuring kids like that don't show up in recommended at all but that would be too simple of a fix and not fuck the creator community over enough.
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Crono99 posted...

Do you have videos of dolphins showing up in your recommended videos list? <_<

...really?

But if you want an answer, no, because 1) I don't watch as many dolphin videos (and/or animals mating with each other videos) as you probably think, and 2) more often than not when I watch things from channels I'm not subscribed to I do it in incognito mode so it doesn't screw with my recommendations.
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WilliamPorygon posted...

...really?

yes really
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Old news
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spudger posted...

is Jared running youtube? jfc

Which Jared? lol
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