On YouTube, Three Clicks Separate Children’s Videos From Adults’
What’s the Latest Development?
Today is Safer Internet Day, and to mark the occasion, security company Kaspersky has released a study showing that, on average, a child watching age-appropriate content on YouTube is only three clicks away from graphic adult content, including violence and nudity. The gateway is the Recommended Videos panel, which appears on the right side of a video page. Among several examples provided in the study was one in which “a music video featuring swearing and guns was two clicks away from a Rastamouse clip.”
What’s the Big Idea?e
In a separate survey of 24,000 young people run by the UK Safer Internet Centre, “more than a third of seven-year-olds and 45% of 16- to 19-year-olds said they had not been taught about staying safe online.” Both studies highlight the importance of parental supervision and the need to use any and all controls available to block inappropriate content. YouTube offers a safety feature, but its parent company Google says that because it relies on users to help flag offensive videos, it cannot guarantee that it will work all of the time.
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