Self-Harm Clips Hidden in Kids' Cartoons (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @08:16AM from the growing-concerns dept.

Children's charity the NSPCC has accused YouTube of failing to tackle dangerous content on its youth channel. From a report: YouTube Kids, dubbed as a safer, child-friendly version of the video-sharing site, has been criticised by parents for failing to remove cartoons that contain clips depicting suicide methods on its platform. The clips show a YouTuber demonstrating a suicide method. Google told the BBC it works hard to remove such content. "We have strict policies that prohibit videos which promote self-harm. We rely on both user-flagging and smart-detection technology to flag this content for our reviewers," the firm said in a statement. "We are always working to improve our systems and to remove violat[ing] content more quickly." It is unclear how or why the clips depicting suicide methods were embedded in children's cartoons. The BBC has received no response from the YouTuber. It also asked Google, which owns YouTube, if it had spoken to him directly but did not get a reply.

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Re:Sigh... by Anonymous Coward · 2019-02-26 09:21 · Score: 4, Informative

Cartoon self-harm is now banned?
This isn't about Wile E. Coyote blowing himself up. Read the article.
This is about a cartoon that has a LIVE-ACTION CLIP OF A MAN DEMONSTRATING A SUICIDE METHOD spliced into it.
I know everyone's down on moral outrage these days, but it's pretty damn well justified here.