YouTube has announced it will be switching off all comments on videos featuring young children.
The video-sharing website, which hosts millions of hours of new footage every day, said it’s taking action after some “deeply concerning incidents” regarding child safety on YouTube.
The move comes after the discovery in 2017 of thousands of explicit comments, obscene language, and ‘signalling’ by paedophiles to content that features kids. It led to a backlash from advertisers, including Nestle and Hasbro, who pulled their associations with the site.
Historically, YouTube has acted reactively to disable such comments, but it will now switch off comments on all videos featuring children automatically, using special algorithms. The changes will be rolled out over several months.
In a blog post, the site said it would also suspend comments on videos featuring older minors “that could be at risk of attracting predatory behaviour” – but said a small number of creators featuring under-18s would be able to keep comments switched on.
However, those creators – likely to be known YouTube stars or vloggers – will have to “actively moderate their comments, beyond just using moderation tools, and demonstrate a low risk of predatory behaviour”, YouTube said in a statement.
YouTube also said it had removed certain channels that had been shown to “attempt to endanger children”. This includes FilthyFrankClips, which posted a video instructing children how to cut themselves, and channels that add inappropriate content in the middle of children’s cartoons such as Peppa Pig.
Andy Burrows from the NSPCC, said the move was an “important step”, telling the BBC: “We know that offenders are twisting YouTube videos for their own sexual gratification, using them to contact other predators and using the comments section as shop window to child abuse image sites.”
He called for an independent regulator to force social media companies to follow the rules, or face “tough consequences”.