Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Vlogger Matt Watson explained and showed everything in detail in his video. There’s a huge number of videos on YouTube available to the public, featuring children, mostly girls under the age of 13, who practice gymnastics, yoga, eat ice cream, stretch at the doctor’s exam and the like. The content of the videos themselves is not disputed, and they have not been recorded or published for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
However, underneath the videos, users can find a rather gruesome exchange of inappropriate sexual and predatory commentary, as well as time stamps of the video that lead to the exact exact moments in the video in which the girls are in compromising positions (widespread legs, their underwear showing, eating ice cream …).
According to Watson, whose video has been seen by almost 2.9 million people at the time of the writing of this article, it’s enough to click on just a few of these videos to get into what Watson calls a wormhole where all the content YouTube recommends will keep directing you to the same type of videos, in whose comments pedophiles lurk.
To make things worse, with some of these videos, YouTube published paid promotional materials, of the likes of Nestle, Disney, and Dr. Oetker, as well as Epic Games (publisher of the globally popular Fortnite video game), Bloomberg writes.
Nestle told BBC that the food giant decided to freeze its advertising on YouTube worldwide while investigating the case.
“We will revise our decision upon completion of current measures being taken … to ensure Nestlé advertising standards are met” they added.
In addition to stopping advertising for their products, Epic Games has sent a letter to Google, owner of YouTube, asking to state what steps will be taken to eliminate this type of content from their platform.
Also, one of the ads that appeared alongside the controversial videos is that of the Google Chromebook, the laptops that use the Google Chrome OS.
“Any content –including comments — that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube. We took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling violative comments,” a spokeswoman for YouTube said in an email.
According to the spokeswoman for YouTube, total ad spending on the controversial video content mentioned was less than $ 8,000 in the last 60 days, and YouTube plans to refund that budget to advertisers.
This is not the first time this platform has been under fire for similar scandals. Two years ago, several major advertisers pulled spending from YouTube, including Procter & Gamble, Marks & Spencer, Audi, and even some British government agencies, after ads surfaced next to extremist and violent content, Bloomberg and BBC report.
YouTube has also faced criticism in 2017 for hosting inappropriate videos meant for kids, but according to vlogger Watson, the situation is now far more grave, as the mentioned wormhole engulfs the user very fast, even if they use a brand new account, that has no ties with sexually exploiting content.
It should be noted that the vast majority of revenue for the mother company of both YouTube and Google, Alphabet Inc., come from advertising. Last year they earned nearly $137 billion, a rise of 23% year over year.