Although YouTube has tried to filter out child-friendly and appropriate content, there is still scary content on Youtube in general and Youtube Kids in particular. The article will help you better understand the TOP 3 most disturbing content on Youtube that parents need to watch out for.
TOP 3 most disturbing content on Youtube
Gore, bloody content
A good example of bloody content on YouTube is the cartoon character Minnie’s mother fell down an escalator, stuck in the machine, blood spurting out, while the children cried.
These contents were posted by Simple Fun, a channel that has been active since July 2017. Although Simple Fun was removed by YouTube due to serious violations of YouTube’s policy on spam, deceptive behavior and offensive, misleading content. However, there is still a lot of violent content for child characters, sexually suggestive content, child characters in gore scenes exist.
These are discovered through YouTube Recommendations or simply allowing children’s videos to autoplay. According to former YouTube engineer Guillaume Chaslot, Recommendations are designed to optimize watch time so there’s no reason why really good content for kids should be shown.
Content that instills suicidal thoughts
YouTube is a place for children to entertain with a variety of genres and content. Especially with pre-school content that can be lucrative for ad-sponsored channels, as it’s easier for young children to watch any video YouTube suggests, while parents often cannot monitor their child’s media use minute by minute.
One of the weird bits from YouTube’s Recommendation shows one of the canine heroes of this Paw Patrol series trying to kill himself by jumping off a building. Or there is also a video of worming parasites and eyes, titled “Mickey Mouse babies cry because they have insects in their stomach!”.
Anyone who has spent a lot of time on Youtube will notice that certain videos are suggested over and over, with no apparent quality regard – even if you express your disinterest in them by using YouTube’s limited viewing management options.
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Risks of access to pornography and violence
Nothing is completely safe, and neither is Youtube Kids. Despite being short, children are still at risk of seeing nudity, violent content that is not appropriate for their age. Research shows that 27% of videos watched by children under 8 are intended for an older audience, with violence being the most likely type of negative content.
What is the harm of disturbing content on Youtube?
Adverse experiences have a negative effect on brain development and threats, abuse, and violence lead to over-activation of the fear and stress response circuitry, thereby will affect the normal development of your child’s brain.
In addition to the main effects on the brain, the results report and a 1982 follow-up report from the National Institute of Mental Health identified the main harmful effects of viewing violent content:
- Children may become less empathetic and more lacking in the pain and suffering of others.
- Children may be more afraid of the world around them.
- It can be easy for children to behave in ways that are aggressive or harmful towards others.
Research by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron, and others starting in the 1980s has found that children with frequent exposure to violent content in elementary school tend to exhibit higher levels of aggressive behavior as they become adolescents. Children who view violent content frequently as young as 8 years old are more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for a crime as an adult.
Another study has found that exposure to violent content can desensitize your child to real-world violence and in some cases find violent content increasingly enjoyable than others.
How can parents better protect their kids on YouTube?
YouTube has removed or restricted reported inappropriate videos, which will usually take effect after a few hours. However, content removal on a case-by-case basis is not a suitable long-term solution to promptly deal with the huge amount of content generated every second of every minute, especially potentially annoying content for Youtube’s very young target audience.
If not proactively blocked in time, just a few seconds children exposed to harmful content on Youtube is enough to make them have nightmares and fear.
That is why parents should combine the use of the following measures.
Set up Parental Controls on YouTube Kids
After signing in with your Google account, you can create a personal passcode to access the app’s settings. The app allows configuration for up to 8 children, each with their own avatar and individual settings, including time limits and personal passcodes for each child so they can’t access each other’s records. You can know more about how to set up parental controls on Youtube.
It’s important for you to decide if you want to let your kids search apps freely or rely on age-based content settings (under 4, 5–7 and 8–12) and video. which will be filtered to suit each age. Selecting “Content Approval” yourself turns off the search and instead shows Video Collections, which have been verified as age-appropriate.
Use online content filtering tools
As mentioned, no tool or entertainment product is 100% safe even if it is labeled for children, to ensure your child’s online environment is safe and healthier, you should consider using an additional online content filtering tool – considered by many parents as one of the best free parental control software to hide 15 types of harmful content on the Internet, including:
- Pornography
- Horrifying content like gore, accidents, ghosts, violence, murder, terrorism, etc
- Content about stimulants, addictive substances such as alcohol, beer, marijuana, drugs, etc
- Content with aggressive elements, hurting others like Hate speech
This free porn blocker extension can help to minimize your child’s access to harmful content, ensuring a healthy online environment for your child but at the same time, not invading their privacy rights.
Regularly watch videos on Youtube with your children
As with any media product that contains user-generated content, you should closely supervise and watch with your child when possible. If you find a disturbing video, you can block it to make sure it doesn’t show up again. You can also report this content, which will alert YouTube of inappropriate content so it can be reviewed and removed if necessary.
Watching videos with your child also helps you strengthen your family bond and is one of the opportunities you need to seize to teach your child what is and isn’t right for them.
Talk openly with your child
Chances are, after being exposed to harmful content, your child will experience panic and anxiety, guilt, or shame, which can shut down avenues for open discussion with your child if you let them down. Make your child feel like he will be scolded.
Instead, you should be considerate of your child’s feelings, explain why you might be worried that it’s not okay to see such content, gradually friendly communication and conversation to work together to solve the problem. solve the problem.
Wise modern parents are always proactive in bringing the best for their children. To better protect your child from all porn sites, for all internet-connected devices your child use, you should pre-order Wifi Device, becoming the first parents to own the solution which 24/7 protects your kids from harmful websites. Best prices are always available for early birds!
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