“Children's
innocence is precious and must be protected at all costs”
This distressing
content found on YouTube, involves pseudo characters which are
fashioned after well-known children's favourites. These videos are
specifically targeted at kids, and are indistinguishable from the
genuine ones. The New York Times researched this sorry state
of affairs, writing: “parents have reported that the [Kid's app]
has shown videos of popular animated characters dying in a car crash,
others of popular characters urinating on each other, and one of a
real child apparently bleeding after her forehead was shaved” [1].
And to make matters even worse: “according to recent analysis,
these [violent and inappropriate videos] are sprinkled in with
kid-friendly ones from well-known studios...” [1].
The industrial scale
weekly output of countless unsuitable children's videos, is the last
thing anyone would expect from YouTube, a platform that has given so
much to everyone. The YouTube Kids site message is great: “Dive
into a world of discovery, learning, and fun. YouTube Kids gives your
family an easy way to watch their favorite shows, or explore anything
that captures their imagination. It’s free, simple to use, and full
of family-friendly videos” [2]. But YouTube is not delivering.
Shocking? Yes, but it
is what it is, and many of the videos “tap into popular keywords,”
[1] and bring them up on children's searches. Moreover, while it has
to be noted that YouTube states it: “screens videos to pull
inappropriate ones from its children-oriented YouTube Kids app, and
encourages people to flag any videos they view as inappropriate on
its platforms”[1], it appears that not all the red flags are being
actioned. So this unforgivable situation is
still a massive issue [1].
YouTube issued a
statement to Business Insider, stating it wants to keep the
platform as open as it can, while at the same time, look out for
younger viewers: "We’re always looking to improve the YouTube
experience for all our users and that includes ensuring that our
platform remains an open place for free communication while balancing
the removal of controversial content"[1]. Good enough?
Absolutely not. As Zoe Bernard, journalist for Business Insider
says: “Despite YouTube's efforts, there are still plenty of creepy,
kid-targeted videos on its sites. And it doesn't appear to be all
that hard for kids to find them” [1].
YouTube does not seem
to be in control, even though this issue should be of paramount
importance. A viable solution is desperately needed to protect
vulnerable children from this horror: step in the solution to the
future: OONA, the regulated free OTT
mobile TV app, which is like YouTube, but better.
OONA makes parental
control and the platform's internal content control, its priority.
The OONA app has a parental control feature, and internal control
procedures are conducted by a dedicated professional team of TV
consultants and producers. All of OONA's children's content, such as
ZooMoo, the interactive TV channel which educates and entertains 3 to
6 year old children about the fascinating wildlife around the world,
is rigorously checked and monitored. ZooMoo combines a happy cast of
furry, funny, characters. They all come with impressive natural
history footage and interesting story lines which generate a unique
experience for youngsters [3]. This is the kind of quality that all
parents would expect from a leading platform. And few could barely
dream of what children are being exposed to now. OONA's two tiered
layer of security is imperative to the high standards of customer
care that OONA believes should be mandatory for all platforms. This
is the only real way to guaranteed that TV and video content has been
appropriately screened and monitored.
While YouTube states
that its main app and site, YouTube.com, are not meant to be used by
children under 13 years of age, the fact remains that: “the main
YouTube service contains plenty of kids videos. Meanwhile, the
company does little to inform parents or kids that the service is not
intended for younger children or to prevent kids from accessing it”
[1].
Although YouTube's
Terms of Service does actually state that its main service is only
suitable for children who are at least 13 years old, few people are
likely to look at it. In addition, the platform does take active
measures to block children below this age from setting up an account
on Google, a mandatory step to: “subscribe to YouTube channels or
upload videos to the service — and to prevent them from seeing some
videos depicting sex or other adult themes” [1], the fact of the
matter is that the majority of YouTube's main service videos can
easily be reached by children who can access it via their parents'
permanently logged in accounts [1].
YouTube's violent and
inappropriate kid's content is being masterminded by despicable
individuals and organisations who see a loophole. They are taking
advantage of YouTube's and Google's structure, the latter of which is
designed to amass the maximum revenue from online videos. So the time
has come to think about other more practical, safe and sustainable
options. OONA is one of them. OONA's advertising strategy is very
different to that of YouTube's, and so this kind of nightmare
scenario can never arise.
OONA's
cutting-edge interactive platform, which rewards users with a virtual
currency for watching content, is a game changer, and is well on
course to fulfill its company mission statement: “To make life fun
for billions of adults and children by providing Free Mobile TV.”
The company is now geared to serve a 185 million plus Indonesians
after its recent partnership with Telkom Indonesia, one of the
world's largest TELCOM companies; and is successfully creating
inroads into Africa and other parts of Asia, the Middle East, South
America, the US and Europe, with its free and premium options, and latest state-of-the-art model
which generates a ready to launch business synergy between TELCOM
companies and content owners and broadcasters.
References
1. Bernard, Zoe (2017).
“YouTube is reportedly pointing kids to thousands of disturbing,
violent, and inappropriate videos.”Business Insider. Retrieved
from:
http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-has-thousands-of-disturbing-videos-targeted-at-kids-report-2017-11
Accessed 5 Jan. 2017.
2. YouTube Kids (2017).
“Dive into a world of discovery, learning, and fun.” Retrieved
from: https://kids.youtube.com/
Accessed 5 Jan. 2017.
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