YouTube disables comments on all videos showing kids

Last month we learned that pedophiles have been using YouTube as a way to distribute child pornography and exploit vulnerable children, especially young girls. The horrifying news has left many parents frightened and has resulted in major companies, such as Nestle and Walt Disney Co., to pull advertising with YouTube until the situation can be resolved.

“They’re providing links to actual child porn in YouTube comments,” said Matt Watson, a technology entrepreneur who first publicly identified YouTube’s pornography ring, in a video which now has over 3 million views. “They’re trading unlisted videos in secret. And YouTube’s algorithm, through some kind of glitch or error in its programming, is actually facilitating their ability to do this.”

You can watch Watson’s full video about this terrifying issue below, but be warned that it contains very upsetting material which will show you just how deep this pedophile ring goes and how at risk kids on YouTube are.

As disturbing as this news is, there is a silver lining. In an attempt to combat backlash and regain advertisers’ good faith, YouTube has just revealed that it will no longer allow users to comment on any YouTube videos that involve minors.

“Over the past week, we disabled comments from tens of millions of videos that could be subject to predatory behavior. These efforts are focused on videos featuring young minors and we will continue to identify videos at risk over the next few months,” YouTube outlined on its blog recently. “Over the next few months, we will be broadening this action to suspend comments on videos featuring young minors and videos featuring older minors that could be at risk of attracting predatory behavior.”

YouTube says that some channels with minor content will still allow comments, but these comments will be heavily moderated and these content creators must work closely with YouTube to keep their comment sections safe and “demonstrate a low risk of predatory behavior.”

In addition to these measures, YouTube is also cracking down on any channels which might promote videos that could cause harm to minors, including those infamous viral “challenges,” which encourage people, often kids and teens, to do dangerous things like the fire challenge or the “Bird Box” challenge.