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Elsagate is a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
referring to the controversy surrounding videos on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
and
YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids is an American video app and website for children developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The app provides a version of the service oriented solely towards children, with curated selections of content, parental control feature ...
that are categorized as "
child-friendly
Age appropriateness refers to people behaving as predicted by their perspective timetable of development. The perspective timetable is embedded throughout people's social life, primarily based on socially-agreed age expectations and age norms. Fo ...
", but which contain themes that are
inappropriate for children. Most videos under this classification are notable for presenting inappropriate content; those include
graphic violence
Graphic violence refers to the depiction of especially vivid, brutal and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as film, television, and video games. It may be real, simulated live action, or animated.
Intended limitedly for mature ...
,
sexual situations,
fetishes
A fetish (derived from the French , which comes from the Portuguese , and this in turn from Latin , 'artificial' and , 'to make') is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over ot ...
,
obscene language,
drugs
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalat ...
,
alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
,
injections,
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
, explicit
toilet humor
Toilet humour, or potty or scatological humour (compare scatology), is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, diarrhea, constipation, urination and flatulence, and to a lesser extent vomiting and other bodily functions. It sees subs ...
and dangerous or upsetting situations and activities.
These videos often feature popular characters from family-oriented media, sometimes via
crossovers
Crossover may refer to:
Entertainment
Albums and songs
* ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album)
* ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987
* ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album)
* ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album)
* ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...
, used without legal permission. The term itself is composed of "
Elsa", a character from
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
's ''
Frozen'', known for frequently appearing in such videos, and (a
suffix for scandals).
[ However, the Elsagate controversy has also included channels such as ]Toy Freaks
Toy Freaks was a controversial Elsagate YouTube channel run by Gregory Chism, a single father of two living in Granite City, Illinois. The channel was known for its videos featuring Chism and his two daughters in a variety of disturbing or inhuma ...
that feature real children instead of child/family-friendly characters, raising concern about possible child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to a ...
.
Most videos in this category are either live action
Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ga ...
or crude animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
—although a few channels have been using more elaborate techniques such as clay animation
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Tra ...
or computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
.[Ben Popper]
Adults dressed as superheroes is YouTube’s new, strange, and massively popular genre
, ''The Verge'', 4 February 2017. Despite YouTube's age restriction policies, these videos are sometimes tagged in such a way as to circumvent the inbuilt child safety algorithms, even making their way into YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids is an American video app and website for children developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The app provides a version of the service oriented solely towards children, with curated selections of content, parental control feature ...
, and are thus difficult to moderate due to the large scale of the platform. In order to capture search results and attract attention from users, their titles and descriptions feature names of famous characters, as well as keywords like "education", "learn colors", "nursery rhymes", etc.[Sapna Maheshwari]
On YouTube Kids, Startling Videos Slip Past Filters
, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 4 November 2017.[James Bridle]
Something is wrong on the internet
, Medium, 6 November 2017. They also include automatically placed ads, making them lucrative to their owners and YouTube. Despite the objectionable and often confusing nature of these videos, many attract millions of views.
Public awareness of the phenomenon grew in late 2017, as mainstream media started to report about child safety
Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to e ...
on YouTube. That year—after reports by several media outlets—YouTube adopted stricter guidelines regarding children's content. In late November, the company started to mass-delete channels and videos falling into the Elsagate category, as well as large amounts of other inappropriate videos or user's comments relating to children.[Johanna Wright]
5 ways we’re toughening our approach to protect families on YouTube and YouTube Kids
, ''Official YouTube Blog'', 22 November 2017.
History
Early history (2016–2017)
In June 2016, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' published an article about the channel Webs and Tiaras, which had been created in March of the same year. The channel showed people dressed as characters like Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book '' Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the ...
, Elsa, and the Joker engaging in bizarre or nonsensical actions. The videos themselves had background music
Background music (British English: piped music) is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behav ...
but no dialogue. Having no script, there was no language barrier
A language barrier is a figurative phrase used primarily to refer to linguistic barriers to communication, i.e. the difficulties in communication experienced by people or groups originally speaking different languages, or even dialects in some ...
on the videos which would normally hinder worldwide distribution. The article also reported that several nearly identical channels named Toy Monster, The Superheroes Life, and The Kids Club had appeared on YouTube.[YouTube's latest hit: neon superheroes, giant ducks and plenty of lycra](_blank)
, ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 29 June 2016.
In January 2017, one channel under the control of a YouTube partner in Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, Spiderman Frozen Marvel Superhero Real Life, blocked their Vietnamese subscribers after complaints from parents regarding the content of their videos. The channel's owner was later fined by Vietnamese authorities.
The high number of views have led some to voice concerns that such channels are gaming the system
Gaming the system (also rigging, abusing, cheating, milking, playing, working, or breaking the system, or gaming or bending the rules) can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, Psychological manipula ...
by using bots
The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...
or click farm
Click, Klick and Klik may refer to:
Airlines
* Click Airways, a UAE airline
* Clickair, a Spanish airline
* MexicanaClick, a Mexican airline
Art, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Klick (fictional species), an alien race in the g ...
s to inflate viewing figures to higher proportions; however, there is no evidence for this.
In February 2017, ''The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
'' commented that "adults dressing up in costume and acting out weird, wordless skits has become a booming industry on the world's biggest video platform" and that while many videos were "puerile but benign", others featured more questionable content such as scatological humor
Toilet humour, or potty or scatological humour (compare scatology), is a type of off-colour humour dealing with defecation, diarrhea, constipation, urination and flatulence, and to a lesser extent vomiting and other bodily functions. It sees su ...
and violent or sexual situations. The article noted that most videos were made with a very limited budget and "a few Halloween costumes
Halloween costumes are costumes worn on Halloween, a festival which falls on October 31. An early reference to wearing costumes at Halloween comes from Scotland in 1585, but they may pre-date this. There are many references to the custom durin ...
", which made them easy to produce and contributed to their multiplication. It also attributed their success to the frequent use of "Freudian
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
concerns", which young children may find fascinating, amusing, or frightening, such as " peeing, pooping, kissing
A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...
, pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
, and the terrifying notion of going to the doctor and getting a shot
Shot may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard
*''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck
*'' Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy
* "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus
* ''Shot'' (2017 f ...
".
Also in February, The Awl
''The Awl'' was a website about "news, ideas and obscure Internet minutiae of the day" based in New York City. Its motto was "Be Less Stupid."
History
Founded in April 2009 by David Cho and former ''Gawker'' editors Choire Sicha and Alex Balk ...
published an article on Webs and Tiaras and similar channels, describing their content as "nonsensically nightmarish" with titles like "Frozen Elsa gets CHICKEN FEET!", "Frozen Elsa gets BRAIN BELLY!", "Frozen Elsa & Anna TEAR SPIDERMAN APART!", "EVIL SANTA KIDNAPS Frozen Elsa & Spiderman!", or "Frozen Elsa FLUSHES Spiderman in Toilet!". The website commented that the videos were "pretty twisted for children's content: some videos involve Elsa giving birth, and in some others, Spider-Man injects Elsa with a brightly colored liquid. You half expect the scenarios to be porn setups." In most videos, the like and dislike options were disabled, making it impossible to know how many users were actually engaging with them. Many videos featured hundreds of comments in gibberish, some being written by similar channels in an apparent attempt to attract more clicks.
In March, the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
ran a piece titled "The disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children". The article focused on a ''
Peppa Pig
''Peppa Pig'' is a British preschool animated television series by Astley Baker Davies. The show follows Peppa, an anthropomorphic female piglet, and her family, as well as her peers portrayed as other animals. The show first aired on 31 Ma ...
'' imitation where the titular character's
teeth
A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, tear ...
are
painfully pulled out by a
dentist
A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the mouth, oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofaci ...
, and a video featuring said character burning down an occupied house. The article also mentioned the existence of "hundreds" of similar videos, ranging from
unauthorized
Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More fo ...
but otherwise harmless copies of authentic cartoons to frightening and gory content.
CTV News
CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the national ...
also reported in March about YouTube's "fake toons problem", with adult-themed imitations of popular children's shows frequently appearing on YouTube Kids: "In some cases, the video will feature a kid-friendly thumbnail, while the video itself might be entirely different" and be very unsuitable for small children. The network commented that such videos were "often nightmares to behold, with lots of frightening scenes involving monsters and blood. Many of these videos venture into dark territory, with the characters often being chased, attacked, or injured in a bloody manner."
The term "Elsagate" was coined on the Internet in 2017. During the summer of that year, it became a popular
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
as users called attention to the presence of such material on YouTube and YouTube Kids. On
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
, an Elsagate subreddit (r/ElsaGate) was created on June 23 to discuss the phenomenon, soon attracting tens of thousands of users.
Discovery of Elsagate videos (2017)
In November 2017, several newspapers published articles about the YouTube channel
Toy Freaks
Toy Freaks was a controversial Elsagate YouTube channel run by Gregory Chism, a single father of two living in Granite City, Illinois. The channel was known for its videos featuring Chism and his two daughters in a variety of disturbing or inhuma ...
, which had been created two years earlier by a single father named Greg Chism. Toy Freaks had a total of 8.54 million subscribers and were among the top 100 most viewed before it was shut down that month. The channel often featured Chism's daughters and in most cases showed them scared or crying.
These videos could also be found in local video platforms in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, where YouTube is blocked, including
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...
,
Youku
Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
Youku has its headquarters in the Sinosteel Plaza in Haidian ...
, and
iQiyi. Tencent have set up a specific team to monitor its video platform and permanently shut down 121 accounts and blocked more than 4,000 search keywords by January 2018.
The Ministry of Public Security of China suggested that netizens should report these videos once found.
Several celebrities, including rapper
B.o.B
Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. (born November 15, 1988), known professionally as B.o.B, is an American rapper and record producer. Raised in Decatur, Georgia, Simmons was signed to Jim Jonsin's Rebel Rock Entertainment imprint in 2006. Two years late ...
and comedians
Joe Rogan
Joseph James Rogan (born August 11, 1967) is an American UFC
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly ...
and
Philip DeFranco
Philip James DeFranco (born Philip James Franchini Jr.; born December 1, 1985), commonly known by his online nickname PhillyD, is an American YouTube personality. He is best known for ''The Philip DeFranco Show'', a news commentary show centered ...
discussed Elsagate on social media during this time.
On November 4, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published an article about the "startling" videos slipping past YouTube's filters and disturbing children, "either by mistake or because bad actors have found ways to fool the YouTube Kids algorithms".
On November 6, author
James Bridle
James Bridle (born 1980) is an artist, writer and publisher based in London. Bridle coined the New Aesthetic; their work "deals with the ways in which the digital, networked world reaches into the physical, offline one." Their work has explore ...
published a piece titled ''Something is wrong on the internet'' on
Medium
Medium may refer to:
Science and technology
Aviation
*Medium bomber, a class of war plane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design
Communication
* Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
* Medium of ...
, in which he commented about the "thousands and thousands of these videos": "Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatize, and abuse children, automatically and at scale". Bridle also observed that the confusing content of many videos seemed to result from the constant "overlaying and intermixing" of various popular tropes, characters, or keywords. As a result, even videos with actual humans started resembling automated content, while "obvious parodies and even the shadier knock-offs" interacted with "the legions of algorithmic content producers" until it became "completely impossible to know what is going on".
On November 17, Internet commentator
Philip DeFranco
Philip James DeFranco (born Philip James Franchini Jr.; born December 1, 1985), commonly known by his online nickname PhillyD, is an American YouTube personality. He is best known for ''The Philip DeFranco Show'', a news commentary show centered ...
posted a video addressing "the insane YouTube Kids problem".
''The New York Times'' found that one of the channels featuring counterfeit cartoons, ''Super Zeus TV'', was linked to a website called SuperKidsShop.com, registered in
Ho Chi Minh City
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. A man working for SuperKidsShop.com confirmed that his partners were responsible for the videos, on which "a team of about 100 people" were producing. Subsequent requests for an interview went unanswered.
On November 9, members of the satirical sound collage group
Negativland
Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The core ...
presented an episode of their weekly radio show ''
Over the Edge'' dedicated to Elsagate. "Modern Animal Kids" "threads Elsagate through a remix of three 90's episodes of ''Over the Edge'' which focused on media for children, all broadcast in the final years before ''
Teletubbies
''Teletubbies'' is a British children's television series created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport for the BBC. The programme focuses on four differently coloured characters known as the Teletubbies, named after the television screens on th ...
'' pioneered marketing to the 6- to 18-month-old demographic".
On November 22,
BuzzFeed News
''BuzzFeed News'' is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it ...
published an article about unsettling videos that depict children in disturbing and abusive situations. The information on the article came with the assistance of journalist and human rights activist
Matan Uziel
Matan Uziel ( he, מתן עוזיאל; born 21 April 1985) is an Israeli former high tech entrepreneur and documentary filmmaker. He is also the founder of the Real Women Real Stories channel on YouTube.
Discovery of Elsagate videos (2017–pre ...
, whose investigation and report to the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
on that matter were sent on September 22, informing its leadership about "tens of thousands of videos available on YouTube that we know are crafted to serve as eye candy for perverted, creepy adults, online predators to indulge in their child fantasies".
On November 23,
French-Canadian
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...
outlet ''Tabloïd'' released a video investigation about ''Toy Monster'', a channel linked to ''Webs and Tiaras''. They confronted the videos' creators – based out of the south shore of
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
– who refused to be interviewed. One of the actors featured in the videos anonymously stated that he was contractually obligated to refrain from commenting. The investigation revealed that identical content was being posted on numerous channels apparently operated by the same people.
On November 28, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' presented Elsagate as an example of the "dark underbelly of the digital age". The article's author commented that the "gargantuan scale" of the problem seemed to indicate that children's content on YouTube had become "a monster beyond our control" and that "it's terrifying to imagine how many toddlers have been affected" by Elsagate, "in ways beyond our comprehension".
[Dani Di Placido]
YouTube's "Elsagate" Illuminates The Unintended Horrors Of The Digital Age
, ''Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'', 28 November 2017.
Effect on children
Several parents, teenagers, and peers posting on the /r/ElsaGate
subreddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
expressed fears that the videos were traumatizing to children, and may
desensitize or
normalize inappropriate content.
''The New York Times'' quoted pediatrics professor Michael Rich, who stated that these videos were potentially harmful to children who could find them even more upsetting, as "characters they thought they knew and trusted" were shown behaving in an improper or violent manner.
Response from YouTube
In August 2017, YouTube announced its new guidelines on content and monetization. In an ongoing series of
efforts to demonetize controversial and offensive videos, it was announced that creators would no longer be able to monetize videos that "made inappropriate use of family-friendly characters". In November of the same year, it announced that it would implement "a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged".
The controversy extended to channels that featured not necessarily children's characters but actual children, who sometimes performed inappropriate or dangerous activities under the guidance of adults. As part of a broader action, YouTube terminated the channel
Toy Freaks
Toy Freaks was a controversial Elsagate YouTube channel run by Gregory Chism, a single father of two living in Granite City, Illinois. The channel was known for its videos featuring Chism and his two daughters in a variety of disturbing or inhuma ...
, which featured a father (Greg Chism) and his two daughters in potentially abusive situations.
[Todd Spangler]
YouTube Terminates Toy Freaks Channel Amid Broader Crackdown on Disturbing Kids’ Content
, ''Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'', 17 November 2017.[Sarah Templeton]
Disturbing 'ElsaGate', 'Toy Freaks' videos removed from YouTube after abuse allegations
, ''Newshub
''Newshub'' (stylised as ''Newshub.'') is a New Zealand news service that airs on the television channels Three and Eden, as well as on digital platforms. It formerly operated across radio stations run by MediaWorks Radio until December 202 ...
'', 22 November 2017.[Charlie Warzel]
YouTube Is Addressing Its Massive Child Exploitation Problem
, BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...
, 22 November 2017. Chism was subsequently investigated by child-protection officials in Illinois and Missouri for alleged child abuse.
In December 2017, authorities announced that Chism would not face criminal charges. Before its removal, the channel had over 8.5 million subscribers.
It was also revealed in the media that many videos featuring minors – frequently uploaded by the children themselves and showing innocent content – had attracted comments from pedophiles and other groups. Some of these videos were monetized. As a result of the controversy, several major advertisers froze spending on YouTube, forcing YouTube to ban children from their site, citing legal obligations.
On November 22, 2017, YouTube announced that it had deleted over 50 channels and thousands of videos that did not fit the new guidelines. On November 27, the company said in a statement to
BuzzFeed News
''BuzzFeed News'' is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it ...
that it had "terminated more than 270 accounts and removed over 150,000 videos", "turned off comments on more than 625,000 videos targeted by child predators" and "removed ads from nearly 2 million videos and over 50,000 channels masquerading as family-friendly content".
YouTube Has Deleted Hundreds Of Thousands Of Disturbing Kids' Videos
, BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...
, 28 November 2017. ''Forbes'' contributor Dani Di Placido wrote that many problematic videos could still be seen on the platform, and that "the sheer volume of videos hastily deleted from the site prove that YouTube's algorithms were utterly ineffective at protecting young children".
See also
* Shock site
A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive or disturbing to its viewers, though it can also contain elements of humor or evoke (in some viewers) sexual arousal. Shock-oriented websites generally contain material such as pornograp ...
, a similar method
* Toy Freaks
Toy Freaks was a controversial Elsagate YouTube channel run by Gregory Chism, a single father of two living in Granite City, Illinois. The channel was known for its videos featuring Chism and his two daughters in a variety of disturbing or inhuma ...
, a controversial YouTube channel run by Gregory Chism
* FamilyOFive
FamilyOFive, originally known as DaddyOFive, was a controversial YouTube channel and online alias of Michael Christopher "Mike" Martin (born December 17, 1982), which focused on daily vlogging and "prank" videos. At its peak, the channel's videos ...
, a YouTube channel which was at the centre of a scandal in 2017 over child abuse featured in its videos
* Fantastic Adventures scandal
The Fantastic Adventures scandal was a 2019 scandal in involving the YouTube channel Fantastic Adventures, run by Machelle Hackney Hobson of Maricopa, Arizona, United States. The scandal began when one of Hobson's biological children contacted th ...
, a 2019 YouTube scandal involving the owner of a channel inflicting intentional child abuse on her children featured in the videos
* Momo Challenge hoax
The "Momo Challenge" was a hoax and an Internet urban legend that was rumored to spread through social media and other outlets. It was reported that children and adolescents were being harassed by a user named Momo to perform a series of dangero ...
, an alleged internet challenge in 2019 which became the subject of a moral panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...
* Internet screamers, controversial pranks using jumpscares and loud noises
*
* Child Online Protection Act
The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of restricting access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law, however, never ...
(COPA) and Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law, located at ().
The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. juri ...
(COPPA)
* Rule 34
Rule 34 is an Internet meme which claims that Internet pornography exists concerning every conceivable topic. The concept is commonly depicted as fan art of normally non-erotic subjects engaging in sexual behavior. It can also include writings, ...
* Rule 63
Rule 63 is an Internet meme that states that, as a rule, "for every given male character, there is a female version of that character" and vice versa. It is one of the "Rules of the Internet" that began in 2006 as a Netiquette guide on 4chan and ...
* Not safe for work
Not safe for work (NSFW) is Internet slang or shorthand used to mark links to content, videos, or website pages the viewer may not wish to be seen looking at in a public, formal or controlled environment. The marked content may contain nudity, p ...
(NSFW)
* Not safe for life
Not safe for work (NSFW) is Internet slang or shorthand used to mark links to content, videos, or website pages the viewer may not wish to be seen looking at in a public, formal or controlled environment. The marked content may contain nudity, p ...
(NSFL)
* Cartoon pornography
Cartoon pornography, or animated pornography, is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional cartoon characters in erotic or sexual situations. Animated cartoon pornography or erotic animation, is a subset of the larger field of adult ani ...
* Balenciaga child advertising controversy
References
External links
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Abortion in fiction
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category:Child abuse in fiction
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