Mallory Muse via Pixabay

Ever since Youtube was first launched in 2005, weird videos have always been found on the site. However, the recent discovery of violent and sexual videos for children transcends the ‘strange’ label. From Paw Patrol dying brutally in a plane accident to Spiderman and Blackcat having a sensual encounter, these new videos are popping up with content inappropriate for children.

These videos are collectively known as “ElsaGate,” named for the common use of Disney and cartoon characters in said videos. The videos range from animated content to live action, with one of the more infamous live-action channels being named “Toy Freaks.” The father who owns and runs the channel with his children is now being investigated for child endangerment, as seen in the videos. He would show his children their own bloody teeth, scare them in the bathtub with fake animals, force them to use pacifiers and even had one daughter urinate on the other.   

The first question many people ask is: How are these video allowed to remain on Youtube? Youtube is the world’s largest video site with hundreds of videos uploaded every second. Due to the impossibility of manually watching every video, Youtube uses an often buggy algorithm to filter videos. The people running these channels would abuse the tag and title system, which is used to figure out related content, to their advantage. Rather than typing out coherent titles, the videos were filled with buzzwords that made it more likely for the videos to pop up in Recommended.

Youtube has an “autoplay” feature that automatically starts playing the first recommended video if the user does not click cancel. This can cause a child to accidentally go down a rabbit hole, starting with “Finger Family Nursery Rhyme” and ending up on videos like “Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse Pole Dancing in the Bar Love Story! Finger Family Nursery Rhymes.” These videos often have millions of views, making the obscenity rather lucrative.

Due to public outrage, Youtube has responded in a massive way. According to their official blog, in the last week  they have “terminated over 50 channels and have removed thousands of videos under these guidelines, and we will continue to work quickly to remove more every day.” This response has created tension—many advertisers have pulled away from Youtube and Google to avoid risking a bad reputation by association. This has caused many people whose lives depend on Youtube to suffer.

Lfodder, a moderator for the /r/ElsaGate subreddit, created to bring awareness to the issue, believes this response isn’t enough. Lfodder and many others feel the only way to fully stop these videos is to make them completely non-monetizable.

“[Youtube has] explained that the algorithm is being ‘tweaked’ to only censor and demonetize the offending content, but the ‘tweaking’ will likely be exploited by content creators once the new algorithms come into full force,” says Lfodder. “It may sound pessimistic, but we likely will be back at square one with YouTube taking such a hands-off approach. What we really need are humans to sort through whether or not a video is suitable for the video platform, without generating a wealth of false positives”

The /r/ElsaGate subreddit currently has 28,000 subscribers who are all dedicated to spreading awareness and trying to theorize the purpose of the obscene videos. Users share screenshots of the videos to help others avoid and flag them. “In the past, many of our members made attempts to contact a variety of news organizations around the world. Whether these attempts directly led to articles being written is hard to say, but for the average internet user, I believe we are an invaluable resource,” Lfodder says.  

How can parents prevent their children from seeing depressingly obscene videos like “Spiderman Reading Magazine Play Boy Funny Video New Episodes! Finger Family Songs Nursery Rhymes #5”? One of the main pieces of advice offered by Lfodder and others is to not let your child access the internet unsupervised. If parents watch videos with their children, they can help avoid them. Another solution,  if a parent really needs a break, is to put on a Disney movie—then they will know exactly what their children are watching.

Seeing these videos can confuse and possibly harm children psychologically. Teach your children internet safety and remain vigilant.