YouTube has just staged a major scandal – according to the London newspaper The Times, in more than 100 cases the platform was used by pedophiles to abuse children. According to the publication, even if videos with abusive content were reported, at least half of them were not promptly removed.
The supposed transmissions, carried out by children, were accessed by pedophiles who interacted with them in the comment section, asking them to behave in a more sexualized way.
The newspaper’s team was able to find 100 videos that were promptly reported, but only 50 of them were removed from the site – the other half was only removed after YouTube’s press office was contacted. In its defense, YouTube claimed that only four of the 50 videos submitted to the advisory panel had been denounced.
The video network reiterated that it has strict policies on removing content that promotes pedophilia, and that it will continue working on algorithms to remove such material.
In the UK, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has revealed that YouTube has failed to protect children from abuse on its platform. The problem seems to have worsened after the release of live broadcasts – which can be done by any channel, regardless of the number of followers.
The agency has revealed that YouTube is one of the most popular sites for pedophiles, seeing that they can blackmail, manipulate and even threaten children to attend to their wishes.
A recent poll by the NSPCC revealed that in October alone nearly 40,000 live broadcasts were made by children on YouTube – including one of the platform’s highest-paid YouTubers who is only eight years old – where at least two thousand were exposed to abuse in the comments.
