Official Staff Communication
After due consideration, we have concluded that while this video does seek to expose abhorrent practices, the video itself could unintentionally signal boost ways of accessing this kind of material. With that concern in mind, we are removing the video and locking this thread for now.
There is a newsworthy story here and it is likely to be covered by the mainstream press with appropriate precautions in place; when this happens a new thread should be made at that time.
There is a newsworthy story here and it is likely to be covered by the mainstream press with appropriate precautions in place; when this happens a new thread should be made at that time.
Matt Watson said:Over the past 48 hours I have discovered a wormhole into a soft-core pedophilia ring on Youtube. Youtube's recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles' ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual child pornography in the comments. I can consistently get access to it from vanilla, never-before-used Youtube accounts via innocuous videos in less than ten minutes, in sometimes less than five clicks. I have made a twenty Youtube video showing the process, and where there is video evidence that these videos are being monetized by big brands like McDonald's and Disney.
This is significant because Youtube's recommendation system is the main factor in determining what kind of content shows up in a user's feed. There is no direct information about how exactly the algorithm works, but in 2017 Youtube got caught in a controversy over something called "Elsagate," where they committed to implementing algorithms and policies to help battle child abuse on the platform. There was some awareness of these soft core pedophile rings as well at the time, with Youtubers making videos about the problem.
I also have video evidence that some of the videos are being monetized. This is significant because Youtube got into very deep water two years ago over exploitative videos being monetized. This event was dubbed the "Ad-pocalypse." In my video I show several examples of adverts from big name brands like Lysol and Glad being played before videos where people are time-stamping in the comment section. I have the raw footage of these adverts being played on inappropriate videos, as well as a separate evidence video I'm sending to news outlets.
It's clear nothing has changed. If anything, it appears Youtube's new algorithm is working in the pedophiles' favour. Once you enter into the "wormhole," the only content available in the recommended sidebar is more soft core sexually-implicit material. Again, this is all covered in my video.
One of the consistent behaviours in the comments of these videos is people time-stamping sections of the video when the kids are in compromising positions. These comments are often the most upvoted posts on the video. Knowing this, we can deduce that Youtube is aware these videos exist and that pedophiles are watching them. I say this because one of their implemented policies, as reported in a blog post in 2017 by Youtube's vice president of product management Johanna Wright, is that "comments of this nature are abhorrent and we work ... to report illegal behaviour to law enforcement. Starting this week we will begin taking an even more aggressive stance by turning off all comments on videos of minors where we see these types of comments."1 However, in the wormhole I still see countless users time-stamping and sharing social media info. A fair number of the videos in the wormhole have their comments disabled, which means Youtube's algorithm is detecting unusual behaviour. But that begs the question as to why Youtube, if it is detecting exploitative behaviour on a particular video, isn't having the video manually reviewed by a human and deleting the video outright. Given the age of some of the girls in the videos, a significant number of them are pre-pubescent, which is a clear violation of Youtube's minimum age policy of thirteen (and older in Europe and South America). I found one example of a video with a prepubescent girl who ends up topless mid way through the video. The thumbnail is her without a shirt on. This a video on Youtube, not unlisted, and is openly available for anyone to see. I won't provide screenshots or a link, because I don't want to be implicated in some kind of wrongdoing.
I want this issue to be brought to the surface. I want Youtube to be held accountable for this. It makes me sick that this is happening, that Youtube isn't being proactive in dealing with reports (I reported a channel and a user for child abuse, 60 hours later both are still online) and proactive with this issue in general. Youtube absolutely has the technology and the resources to be doing something about this. Instead of wasting resources auto-flagging videos where content creators "use inappropriate language" and cover "controversial issues and sensitive events" they should be detecting exploitative videos, deleting the content, and enforcing their established age restrictions. The fact that Youtubers were aware this was happening two years ago and it is still online leaves me speechless. I'm not interested in clout or views here, I just want it to be reported.
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