Youtube is Facilitating the Sexual Exploitation of Children, and it’s Being Monetized

If you have young kids (well, and if you haven’t), I recommend watching this video by Matt Watson where he describes a ring of pedophiles misusing Youtube to share videos of kids in compromising positions (and in some cases even child pornography):

It is long, but worth a watch. It was already picked up by the media and many companies stopped their Ad Spending on Youtube until it is fixed. However, even if when fix this hole, others will come. So as parents, we have to be careful on what our kids are watching and uploading online. Starting with Youtube.

Safe YouTube For Parents

Many of these videos were actually uploaded by parents without malice. Whenever you are uploading videos online, this is what we recommend:

  1. Youtube is an open social platform. Only upload videos that are supposed to be public.
  2. If you plan to share a video with a small audience, mark them as unlisted
  3. Disable comments.
  4. Maybe don’t upload it at all. Find other ways to share them privately (Dropbox, email).
Safe YouTube For Kids

The other aspect is dealing with kids recording and uploading their own videos.

  1. Talk to them. Explain the risks of uploading and sharing their personal lives online. Once it is out there, it can’t go back.
  2. Supervise. Watch what they are watching and uploading. Make sure that their videos have the right settings (unlisted & no comments).
  3. Do not allow your kids to fall for the pedophiles games (the Lolipop and Yoga streches that Matt mentions on the video).
  4. Enforce the Strict or Moderate mode on Youtube, so when your kids are watching videos online, they are only seeing safer videos. We do that automatically on our Free Family filter.

Stay safe!