Article:
Youtube found to push content about guns to children watching game videos
This post will be a summary of the article that we’ve had a read through.
What I remember from the article is
Children at the age of 9-14 can access such videos which can lead to gun-violence and etc. Researchers create fake accounts identified as 9 year olds and 14 year olds and see how much of youtube they can get on.
The accounts have been recommended gun videos and violence and the youtube algorithm was responsible for that. To explain it differently, the accounts that we were created could be any child on the website. The accounts were watching game-related videos, but the accounts managed to reach places in youtube that is not age-appropriate. The accounts could access videos that 14 / 9 yr olds are not supposed to watch.
Researchers also find videos that were performed by adults which can be easily replicated by minors. Most of the videos are gun-related.
Also on the article, I’ve picked up that most children can get influenced by the media that they see.
This was a big deal because any child now these days can access R18 content easily and gun-violent content.
TTP also had some clear evidence that video games were not to blame for violent behavior. “But TTP’s study shows there is a mechanism that can lead boys who play video games into a world of mass shootings and gun violence: YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.”
What I think about the article
I think that the article just points out that there is something wrong with the youtube algorithm. I agree with the article, and I really think that the videos that they recommend could have potential harm to children, they could be influenced by everything they see so this could be dangerous to children. Many children are already exposed to this kind of content and it’s very much easy for them to access that kind of mindset now. I think that youtube needs to have their recommendation algorithm looked into