A Mother in Florida found suicide promoting videos encouraging kids to commit suicide and cause self-inflicting wounds on YouTube.According to media, the mother has reported this to Google and is demanding the videos be taken down immediately the mother said while talking to the media.
Suicide Promoting Videos on YouTube Kids
YouTube kids is a platform designed by YouTube for children. The app’s purpose is to provide kids with family friendly content
MS Hess, a Florida mom, was shocked when she found her son watching a suicide promoting video. The video was embedded in the middle of a kid’s movieshowing children how to cut their wrist and kill themselves.
The Florida pediatrician while talking to the media said that the number of cases involving children with self-inflicted wounds has increased when you ask them why or who told them to do this the child in a majority of the cased points towards suicide promoting videos.
When Hess sat down to search for other such videos on YouTube Kids, she was horrified. She found numerous videos deemed unfit for child viewership and noted that this wasn’t the first time a video on YouTube Kids got flagged.
YouTube is not the only social medium accused of airing suicide promoting content.Recently, A father said, Instagram helps takes lives, after her daughter committed suicide.
You Tube’s Response to the situation
YouTube in a press statement said we understand that there’s much work to be done. We are working hard to make YouTube kid’s family friendly and take feedback seriously.
They continued to comment and said we appreciate the flagging of inappropriate content. We review the flagged content manually and remove it immediately if deemed unfriendly for kids. The reviewing process happens 24/7.
What can parents do to protect their children from viewing such content?
Through an online parenting blog run by Hess, she says parents should be aware of what their children are viewing. They should install monitoring software on their child’s device that alerts them immediately if their children see something unfit for their viewing.
Hess stressed on the fact that kids are the digital native and their understanding of how technology or digital platforms works is much better than ours. So to better protect them and ourselves parent need to understand and keep up with modern technology.
She further stressed that YouTube, YouTube kids, and parents need to work together to effectively solve this problem as Suicide promoting videos are nothing to joke about.
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