YouTube Kids Has Videos on How Reptilians Rule the World, Moon Landing Was Fake (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: YouTube Kids, the supposedly child-friendly version of YouTube that's been shown to often play host to troves of slop content and disturbing videos, apparently was showing videos from British conspiracy theorist David Icke, a guy who believes reptilian aliens secretly control the world and are responsible for the Holocaust. According to a Saturday report in Business Insider, searching for the term "UFO" on YouTube kids turned up a video purporting "to show a UFO shooting at a chemtrail." The suggested followups for that video featured a number of Icke's clips, including a nearly five-hour lecture on how aliens built the pyramids and secretly run the planet through a ruling class extraterrestrial-human hybrids. The video also delves into a number of other conspiracy theories, including claims Freemasons indulge in human sacrifice and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by his own government.

According to Business Insider, "Two other conspiracy theory videos by Icke appeared in the related videos, meaning it was easy for children to quickly go from watching relatively innocent videos about toys to conspiracy content." Searching for the term "moon landing" also resulted in a number of conspiratorial videos emerging, including one making the claim that CERN's Large Hadron Collider had opened a portal to another world that an unfortunate employee then vanished in.

Comments

Demonetization

[SmaryJerry]

I thought YouTube had already turned their whole website into YouTube Kids by demonetizing anything for adults.

Re:Demonetization

[Anonymous Coward]

It may come as a surprise to you, but a 'log' of adults are interested in things besides the progressive-left's neo-marxist propaganda.

Re:Demonetization

[Z00L00K]

Especially the gun related channels - even if most of them are actually pretty informative, like "forgotten weapons".

Another channel that I do follow is bosnianbill.

Re: Demonetization

[MightyYar]

First let's take a step back - why should anything be protected by copyright in the first place? The answer is of course that we want to encourage people to create things. All the rules should pretty much follow from there: will this usage impact the incentive to create in some significant way? As an example, creating a video where you compare the beats in two songs, playing a small sample from each song, has zero commercial impact one way or another on the value of the two songs. The creators will continue to create.

So don't ask, "Why should x be allowed to use x's work?"

Ask, "Why should our government expend time and money protecting x's work?"

The Internet - the meme machine

[Camel Pilot]

In the 90's I once heard someone boast that the Internet is the place where religions go to die...

Little did he know that the Internet is where even more bizarre and unsustainable ideas such as Flat Earth and Lizard rulers go to get new life and willing meme hosts.

Re:The Internet - the meme machine

[asavage]

I also thought in the early 90's the internet could bring enlightenment as everyone in the world would have access human knowledge. Unfortunately in reality people have just sought out like minded individuals.

That's Icke

[PopeRatzo]

The difference between the "alternative" and conspiracy media in the UK and the US outlets like Infowars is that David Icke actually challenges the prevailing political power structure, where Infowars supports and is used by the prevailing political power structure.

This is a complete reversal for conspiracy media in the United States. Until very recently, it was always hostile to those in power. Today, it is the tool of those in power.

Please don't take these down

[thinkwaitfast]

they are very entertaining. The best(worst) are the contrail conspiracies.

Re:Please don't take these down

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

In 10 years, they may be the only service around anymore. Copyright holders are pushing to overturn the DMCA stuff that lets services not be held responsible for copyright violations as long as they take down such when notified, in a timely manner.

This helped the Internet and its companies grow explosively in the US. Only the giants will be able to provide anymore if this is repealed.

Kids search for term, get videos

[I'm New Around Here]

Why shouldn't the kids see these videos? It's not like it's porn or bloody murder. So they get to see a kook, and their parents get a lot of questions for a week.

Re:Kids search for term, get videos

[chihowa]

So we agree that kids are very suggestible and we (as a society) have come to the conclusion that massive advertising agencies with teams of people that are trained in psychological manipulation can have access to children (for profit), but children can't even be accidentally exposed to crackpots because something might be repeated to another kid.

Actually, it is't we as a society that have come to this conclusion but Alphabet, the largest advertising company in the world.

Icke = anti-War, pro-Human...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with Icke is that he constantly speads an ANTI-WAR agenda, with well considered pro-Humanist arguments. The exact opposite of team Blair/Clinton/Merkel/Macron etc.

David Icke is the enemy of all Fabian (named as Ingsoc in Orwell's 1984) organisations, especially the BBC and Guardian newspaper (both of which were at the forefront of pushing Blair's Iraq WMD lies to the planet).

Icke's books are remarkable when you ignore the 10% of colourful fantasy all such thinkers seem to include. But it is the commonplace tactic of the state to ensure this 10% gets all the attention.

Meanwhile Google, the owner of Youtube, has purchased all available military robot design and manufacturing facilities, and is busy on a trillion dollar project to design and build the tank drone forces that are commonly refered to as "teminator-style genocide machines". In other words Icke and Google are on exact opposite sides of the moral spectrum- Google being (as it always has been) pure evil.

On google's 'child friendly' youtube, children are told that Hillary Clinton's holocaust of Libya was a "good thing". Letting you kids access the child-friendly version of youtube is like allowing them to spend time alone with a catholic priest.

Really?

[Camel Pilot]

You have underestimated the power of... stupid.

I know several Flat Earthers and there is no evidence you can supply them to convince them otherwise. They go so far as to Thank Jesus for revealing the Truth to them.

Re:Really?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They could do the same thing the ancient Greeks did to prove the world was round -- observe the shadow of the Earth on the moon during a lunar eclipse is always round. The only object that projects a round shadow regardless of its angle is a ball.

Then if they like, they could measure the angle of a stick's shadow at noon on the same day, in two places hundreds of miles away, north and south. They will be different angles and you can calculate the size of tbe Earth-as-ball.

Then, knowing how big the Earth is, they can calculate the size of the moon based on Earth's shadow.

Then, knowing how big the moon is, they can calculate how far away it is.

This will catch them all up to the ancient Greeks, who did this hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

Re:Really?

[JonnyCalcutta]

You're making the mistake of assuming they want to discover the truth. What most want to do is rewrite the 'facts' to fit better into their personal world view (which is generally something more spiritual with mankind at the centre of the universe).

Re:Reptilians Rule the World? I'd buy that.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree! Has anyone ever tried to negotiate with an alligator? They ignore your offers and the only counter-offer is biting down hard on you and rapidly spinning. Your body parts come off and they eat you. End of negotiations.

Time Honored Tradition

[SuperKendall]

Instead of removing the conspiracy videos, we need MORE of them.

Remember the Calvin & Hobbes comics, where the dad would make up nonsense about the past - like the world being in black & white until 1950 or so? Well Dads (and uncles) across time have reserved the right to feed kids the most outlandish nonsense about how the universe is or works.

Besides the LOLs, it provides great practical value for the kids as they learn to question EVERYTHING. I just see conspiracy videos playing into that grad tradition.

Obviousssssly

[nospam007]

It issss abssssssolutely a ssssstupid thing to believe.

Relax

[Opportunist]

Psychologists all over the world agree that kids need fairy tales.

Re:Reptilians did the holocaust?

[Killall -9 Bash]

You seriously are comparing dictatorships and other almost-totalitarian regimes to a modern democracy?

Which one is the democracy?

Freedom of speech does not equal the privilege to insult others at will.

That's pretty much exactly what the fuck it is. Dumbass. No, really. The first amendment exists because King George didn't like colonists talking smack about him, and used military force to suppress opinions. Maybe you think that political speech is different than calling you a dumbass. That's because you're a dumbass. King Dumbass, in fact..... And I don't quite like the royal decrees you've made concerning what I may or may not say.

There is such thing as a mature discussion.

You're new to the Internets, I see.

Re:Reptilians did the holocaust?

[sexconker]

Freedom of speech does not equal the privilege to insult others at will.

Yes it does, you fuckstain.