After reports surfaced earlier this year of sexual child exploitation at the hands of YouTube’s algorithm, the platform effectively disabled all comments on videos featuring children.
Kids Presence Ever-Growing on YouTube
Creators are picking up on the trend of child popularity, and using kids in their videos as a means to guarantee ad revenue.
YouTube is currently at the center of a Federal Trade Commission investigation into the safety of kids on its platform, but the video streaming giant refutes the Pew study’s findings that kids are their most popular asset.
A spokesperson for the company said that “generally on YouTube, the most popular video categories tend to be areas like comedy, music, sports and ‘how to.’”
That may be so, but all of those categories can and do feature children, which further proves Pew’s theory that videos with kids are three times as popular.
Bottom line parents: be vigilant. Know what your kids are watching, and how their use of YouTube makes them a target.
