YouTube pushes children's videos to pedophiles through content recommendation engine

A mom in Brazil became concerned as she watched the viewing numbers on innocent backyard clip her daughter posted to YouTube suddenly climb hundreds of thousands of views. The child posted a video of herself and a friend playing in the family pool. YouTube's recommendation engine had been suggesting the video as recommended content to viewers who'd just watched other videos that contained sexually oriented video content. YouTube's AI sexualized her kid and pushed her image to pedophiles. This happens a lot, apparently.

YouTubes algorithm has been curating home movies of unwitting families into a catalog of semi-nude kids, tweeted Max Fisher at the New York Times.

YT often plays the videos after users watch softcore porn, building an audience of millions for what experts call child sexual exploitation.

I asked YouTube why not just turn off recommendations on videos of kids? Your system can already identify videos of kids automatically, says Fisher.

The recommendation algorithm is driving this whole child exploitation phenomenon. Switching it off would solve the problem and keep kids safe.

YouTube's CEO is a woman, Susan Wojcicki.

From Max Fisher and Amanda Taub at the New York Times:

YouTubes automated recommendation system which drives most of the platforms 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 had curated the videos from across its archives, at times plucking out the otherwise innocuous home movies of unwitting families, the researchers say.