{"id":134152,"date":"2019-04-02T20:11:34","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T20:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=134152"},"modified":"2025-07-01T22:08:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:08:56","slug":"youtube-toxic-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/youtube-toxic-content\/","title":{"rendered":"YouTube under fire for toxic content"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"YouTubeLast year, a popular YouTuber named Logan Paul published a video on YouTube showing a man who committed suicide. To make matters worse, the video appeared in YouTube’s “trending” tab until it was pulled off the site<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n

With the memory of the stunt still fresh, many have been asking how this could have happened, and if the problem with toxic content has improved.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the toxic YouTube trend seems to be growing.<\/strong> Why?<\/p>\n

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YouTube may be looking the other way<\/h2>\n

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is currently under fire for not doing more to combat false, toxic content. In an exclusive interview for Bloomberg News<\/a>, an unidentified source who worked with her said, \u201cHer view was, \u2018My job is to run the company, not deal with this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The article goes on to say that YouTube employees would propose methods of tracking and removing\u00a0toxic content, but would get shot down.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is also evidence of YouTube allowing toxic content to stay active<\/strong> because of popularity.<\/p>\n

In late 2017, YouTube deleted a channel called Toy Freaks. The channel starred a father and his two daughters in uncomfortable situations.<\/p>\n

Before being taken down, the channel had amassed more than 8 million subscribers and more than half a billion cumulative views<\/strong>. The channel had been on YouTube since 2012.<\/p>\n

Although YouTube deleted the channel, the company was chastised for allowing it to last that long.<\/p>\n

The YouTube algorithm works against it<\/h2>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

A huge issue in the minds of many YouTube content creators lies in YouTube’s algorithm.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Problems with the algorithm include videos not appearing in sub-boxes, and popular videos not “trending.”\u00a0<\/strong>However, the major issue concerning the algorithm has been the lack of answers from YouTube.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The algorithm has also proven to heavily work against YouTube by allowing toxic content into the trending tab.\u00a0<\/strong>In early 2019, the channels Jake Paul and RiceGum made videos promoting a gambling site<\/strong>. Both RiceGum and Jake Paul have millions of underage subscribers. RiceGum’s video made it to YouTube’s trending tab.<\/a><\/p>\n

Popular channels such as PewDiePie, The Game Theorists, H3H3 Productions,\u00a0and Markiplier have spoken about the algorithm.<\/strong>\u00a0They have not received much satisfactory feedback, as the issues keep arising. Markiplier released a video discussing the issue here:<\/p>\n

Pedophelia and sexual videos aimed at kids<\/h2>\n

\"Kids<\/p>\n

YouTube has a system of flagging inappropriate content in videos. The videos are typically either removed entirely or prompt the viewer to sign in to confirm their age.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Patrick Copeland is a former director at Google. Recently he criticized YouTube on his LinkedIn<\/a> after his daughter watched a sexually explicit video. The video was aimed at children <\/strong>and featured Snow White.<\/p>\n

Copeland writes: “How is this a good thing for anyone, let alone young children?\u00a0 Most companies would fire someone for watching this video at work. Does YouTube think it\u2019s ok to host and recommend extremely sexist and misogynistic videos that include rape? This is worrisome especially when it comes to young kids. Especially mine. Unbelievable!! Going to block this domain.”<\/p>\n

It was recently discovered that pedophiles are using the YouTube comments section<\/strong>\u00a0to timestamp frames of children.<\/a><\/p>\n

Disney and Epic Games removed their advertisements from YouTube as a result<\/strong>. YouTube responded to the issue<\/a> by removing the comments section on videos the company deemed at risk of predatory behavior.<\/p>\n

Various content creators have called the new policy discriminatory. Special Books by Special Kids<\/a> is a channel that creates videos featuring children with disabilities. The channel lets them tell their stories in an attempt to educate the public.<\/p>\n

All of the videos on this channel have had the comments section disabled. The creators recently released a video discussing how the new policy has negatively affected their channel:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conspiracy videos<\/h2>\n

\"ConspiracyAbout 400 measles cases have been confirmed in the U.S. this year\u00a0\u2014 the second highest level the disease has reached since 2000.<\/a><\/p>\n

The high volume of measles cases has been attributed to anti-vaccination groups. They have created anti-vaccination conspiracy videos that have millions of views on YouTube.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To give YouTube some credit, they are trying to solve the problem<\/strong>. YouTube has moved to demonetize anti-vaccination videos and channels<\/a> to discourage misinformation.<\/p>\n

YouTube also now combats toxic conspiracy videos by including links to Wikipedia pages giving the facts on the issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Anti-vax<\/p>\n

YouTube is one of the world’s most popular websites, but unless it can find a way to clamp down on disturbing content, it could risk losing the audience it’s spent building for 14 years.<\/p>\n

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YouTube continues its endless battle against toxic content, but are they doing everything they can?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9180,"featured_media":134167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2355,1044],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-134152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionyoutube","tag-youtube"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326315,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134152\/revisions\/326315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134152"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=134152"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=134152"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=134152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}