YouTube to ban comments on videos featuring minors

YouTube has seen an exodus of companies refusing to advertise due to the latest issues. Photo/Getty Images.

YouTube said Thursday that it will block users from commenting on most videos that feature minors, responding to reports that paedophiles had used comments to find, track and exploit children.

Under YouTube's new policy, users will no longer be able to comment on videos that prominently feature kids under age 13. YouTube said it intends to disable comments on videos including children between 13 and 18 if the content risks attracting predatory behaviour.

YouTube, which is part of Google, said the new rules would take several months to implement, and it would identify minors in videos using software.

"We recognise that comments are a core part of the YouTube experience and how you connect with and grow your audience. At the same time, the important steps we're sharing today are critical for keeping young people safe," the company said in a blog post.

YouTube's move comes two weeks after a video blogger documented how the site had enabled what he called a "soft-core paedophile ring." In many cases, apparent paedophiles took advantage of YouTube's comments system, where they would post time stamps so that others could skip ahead to moments when kids are in compromising positions. Users who viewed videos of minors would be served up additional videos featuring children through YouTube's recommendation engine.

YouTube initially responded last week by removing tens of millions of comments. along with more than 400 channels, on videos involving minors. The revelations also triggered a sharp backlash among major brands that advertise on YouTube, including Nestle and Disney, which suspended their ad spending on the site.

The revelations also led to local backlash, with Spark pulling its marketing activity from YouTube.

Adding further controversy to YouTube's local presence is the effect that the so-called Momo Suicide games are having on children.

The "Momo" character - a scary doll's face holding a knife - interrupts shows and threatens viewers. It has appeared on Fortnite, Peppa Pig and other popular YouTube videos and warns children if they tell their parents then their family will die.

Earlier this week, an Auckland mother has posted heartbreaking footage of the emotional toll that watching the "Momo" suicide game has had on her children.

On Thursday, YouTube said it had accelerated its work on new software that could spot and remove predatory comments more effectively, adding it had terminated additional channels that put children at risk. The company said it would grant an exception to its new comment ban for a "small number of channels that actively moderate their comments and take additional steps to protect children."

YouTube has long struggled to monitor and remove problematic content from its massive platform, where users upload 400 hours of content every minute. In recent years, it has faced controversies over militant extremist content, hateful conspiratorial videos and violent, sexually suggestive clips that were reaching children. A coalition of consumer and privacy groups filed a complaint last year with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that YouTube also is violating the nation's child privacy law by collecting data on kids under the age of 13.

Since the video blogger documented how paedophiles shared time stamps of sexually suggestive moments, a parent in Florida found that a clip explaining how to commit suicide had been spliced into children's videos on YouTube and You Tube Kids, an app specifically designed for children.

-Washington Post