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Dr. Free Hess, a mother and pediatrician from Gainesville, Fla., Recently discovered and broadcast a lot of content on the YouTube Kids app, illustrating suicides, shootings in schools, and acts of violence against women. against female characters.
The nearly dozen videos reported by Hess have since been removed, but she told BuzzFeed News that she feared that many more videos are still on the platform to which children are exposed.
"I found about 10 [videos] very quickly and very easily, but I stopped there simply because I wanted to publish the blog, not because there was not more, "she said. Hess recorded and shared the cartoons that she found on her blog PediMom.com on Friday.
Among the videos she has discovered is a cartoon inspired by Minecraft graphics and titled "Monster School: SLENDERMAN HORROR GAME". In the game, a character finds his victim at school, behind a desk, and pulls it. We see the shooter laughing after.
The animated series is hosted on an account called TellBite, which has more than 167,000 subscribers on its main YouTube channel. His videos accumulate thousands of views.
(Note: This account, along with others, is created first on YouTube, which only allows users 13 years and older to post.) The YouTube Kids app claims to capture content on YouTube and organize videos to find those that are child-friendly, "to make the world safer and easier for children through online video.")
In another clip originally published on YouTube and created by the Toasty Qween account, a young woman is tempted to commit suicide with a knife before her father, whose death is revealed earlier, intervenes.
"End my pain," said his speech bubble in the clip. The entire video is set to the song "Do not worry, child".
The original video on YouTube currently has over a million views.
Ideas and suicide attempts can be found in other animated videos found on YouTube Kids, like the one called "Doki! Doki! Rainclouds New End !!! "In this one, a character tells of a suicide attempt. "Why will not the world let me die?" Said the character.
In the clip, a second character is portrayed and described as someone who arrived at the scene of suicide "just in time" to try to deter the main character.
"Why can not he just let me hang myself?", They answer the appearance of the second character.
Hess stated that he found on the application several other cartoons that were originally not intended for children, but illustrate a toxic and dangerous relational dynamic.
In fact, during her correspondence with BuzzFeed News, she found on the application "Smoke in Mirrors" another cartoon of the user Rika Xox. In this video, a character "just stabbed a girl in her chair," she said, while providing screenshots of the scene.
Like the other videos above, she quickly reported and is waiting for YouTube to take action and get it done.
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, YouTube insists that[s] comments very seriously, "and strives to" ensure that YouTube videos are family-friendly. "
"We thank people who draw our attention to problematic content and allow anyone to post a video. Tagged videos are manually reviewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and any videos that do not belong to the app are removed, "said a spokesman.
The company added that while "constantly improving its systems", it admits that "there is still work to be done".
Last week, YouTube confirmed the removal of a Splatoon-style children's cartoon video. This removal was triggered when parents discovered that a troll had republished the cartoon with a spliced excerpt of an old YouTube personality, encouraging children to cut themselves off.
Hess and other parents had aggressively reported this user and this drawing prior to his final withdrawal. She does not believe that YouTube takes the matter seriously enough or censors content before children can access it.
"I'd like them to recognize the dangers associated with this for our children [and] take seriously the concerns of parents, "she said.
The national suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. You will find other hotlines about suicide at the address befrienders.org.
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