Epic Games puts Fortnite commercials on YouTube before the prey kids' preoccupations



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Epic Games took a temporary break Fortnite advertising on YouTube, freeze caused by the newly discovered news that its commercials were broadcast on videos used by online predators to coordinate and exploit children.

The Verge reports that Epic is pausing its pre-roll ads, the classifieds that are being shown before the videos on the platform, on YouTube and have contacted the Google platform and parent company for content. their service. "

The problem stems from the fact that YouTube apparently facilitates the communication of child predators through its recommendation algorithm, as well as by commenting sections on apparently innocuous videos featuring young children. This is an issue that was highlighted by Matt Watson on Reddit earlier this week and explored in more detail in a report from Verge shortly thereafter.

"The algorithm recommended by YouTube facilitates communication between pedophiles, contact information and links to child pornography in comments," explained Watson's original message. "I can still access them from vanilla YouTube accounts that have never been used before via harmless videos in less than ten minutes, sometimes in less than five clicks."

For example, these videos included comments from predator children sharing timestamps intended to sexualize a child presented in a video that, taken at face value, was not considered inappropriate content in itself. Because such videos are trivial and, apart from the reaction given by commented predators, appropriate for advertising under YouTube's AdSense requirements, type ads Fortnite run before the video starts.

"Any content – including comments – putting miners at risk is obnoxious and we have clear rules banning it on YouTube," said a YouTube representative at The Verge. "There is still a lot of work to be done and we continue to work to improve and catch the abuse faster."

However, the problem is with companies like Epic Games, which typically have a lot of advertising on YouTube. You will find a more detailed description of how this type of content has gained a foothold on the platform in The Verge's complete text.

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