Can you imagine the world without YouTube? Certainly, if I asked my teenage son to try that exercise, he’d look at me like I belong in a psychiatric ward. Much of his allotted screen time is spent watching all manner of things on the platform, especially those that revolve around other people playing video games he enjoys. But, who among us hasn’t watched a cute animal clip or a funny satire video? Followed a tutorial for a new skill we need to learn? The purposes of YouTube are many…and, unfortunately, as the uses have propagated, so have the issues.
- On YouTube’s Digital Playground, an Open Gate for Pedophiles [New York Times] ” YouTube’s automated recommendation system — which drives most of the platform’s billions of views by suggesting what users should watch next — had begun showing the video to users who watched other videos of prepubescent, partially clothed children, a team of researchers has found.”
- YouTube Probes Show By Right-Winger Steven Crowder Over Accusations Of Anti-Gay Rants [Huffington Post] “Carlos Maza, who hosts the Vox show ‘Strikethrough,’ complained to YouTube and posted a mashup of rants on Twitter that showed Crowder mocking Maza’s ethnicity, mannerisms and calling him a ‘lispy queer.’ “
- How YouTube Became a Breeding Ground for a Diabolical Lizard Cult [The New Republic] ” What connects the lizard-headed reptilians and Trump’s army of ghoulish trolls is YouTube, which promulgates this cottage-industry in conspiratorial speculation with little oversight or regulation. Like other internet giants, YouTube has struggled to differentiate between fact and fiction, between legitimate media outlets and manic peddlers of disinformation—and there are few reasons to believe that it will resolve any of these first-order problems of basic online legitimacy any time soon.”
- YouTubers and record labels are fighting, and record labels keep winning [The Verge] ” But in April, nearly five years and 600,000 views later, he received an email from YouTube notifying him that Warner Music Group had claimed copyright over a 15-second video clip he included of Iron Maiden. As a result, the entire video would now be blocked.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- The dark psychology behind YouTube’s success ( Stokel-Walker, C. (2019). The dark psychology behind YouTube’s success. New Scientist, 242(3227), 42–43. )
- YouTube “Fact Checks” Videos Skeptical of Man-made Climate Change ( YouTube “Fact Checks” Videos Skeptical of Man-made Climate Change. (2018). New American (08856540), 34(17), 7. )
- Can YouTube Be Safe for Tweens? Despite new safety measures, YouTube is still risky ( Fleming, W. (2018). Can YouTube Be Safe for Tweens? Despite new safety measures, YouTube is still risky. Your Teen for Parents, 10(5), 52–53. )
