Predatory comments on child videos has become a huge issue for YouTube, and now the platform is once again facing the consequences because it doesn’t appear to be doing enough to counter the issues. According to Bloomberg, Disney, Epic Games, Nestle and Oetker have “paused” all ads on YouTube.
Video blogger Mark Watson shared a video on his channel on how comments on videos with children were being used to enable an ad hoc softcore child porn ring. Comment participants were flagging all comments and videos where underage girls would be performing suggestive actions, such as gymnastics, and YouTube’s own algorithms would inadvertently suggest similar videos to viewers.
A YouTube spokeswomen said that YouTube already terminated accounts and channels associated with such activities, have disabled “violative comments” and reported any illegal activity to law enforcement. In terms of ad spending, the company only saw $8,000 in total across the videos in question, and promised refunds for the money spent on marketing.
