How are creepy cartoons (aka horror movies) anywhere near "child abuse"?
Not saying the cartoons are right or appropriate, but they're not child abuse unless actual children are molested while producing them (which I don't see how considering it's all computer-generated graphics).
I can tell a child "Ill come take your family and cut them in tiny pieces", and that's clearly child abuse.
Or I can show peppa pig raping elsa, and then bashing her brains out... There's nobody that would think that's normal to show children. And again, child abuse.
You might be applying your well developed adult sense of how horrifying various images are supposed to be to kids who haven't learnt that yet. Here are examples showing that it's not as bad as it sounds. Discovery channels shows animals effectively raping each other. For many species, sex is not consensual but is determined by physical strength. The popular Road Runner cartoon had plenty brains being bashed out. When I was a kid, I had a book that showed people having their heads cut off. Not even cartoon people but real people. It was called "Encyclopedia Britannica" and the article was about the French Revolution. So actually most people think that's OK and kids might not be as fragile as you imagine.
The article did nothing to explain the motivation for making sick videos instead of bland knockoffs. I know my grandchildren will watch anything. Surely a sick video won't gather more views than a bland one.
Maybe the number that are sick is small and not typical.
I actually think children would be more likely to select an abusive video to watch than a bland one.
Child psychology is incredibly complex, and I am nowhere near an expert, but out of anecdotal experience, children are both terrified and fascinated by their fears. There is an almost obsessive tendency that comes from a minor trauma: for example, a child being startled by a vacuum might then cry every time he sees a vacuum, and ask to see the vacuum.
Note that I don’t think this absolves parents or anyone at YouTube. I think they are both morally obligated to protect children from videos such as this.
There are thousands upon thousands of them (though many have been recently removed). Especially the 3D ones. And they have staggering view counts in the hundreds of millions, due to the compounding effect of quantity, shock factor and recommendation algorithms.
Ford is creating vans for paedophiles to abuse kids in and do nothing about it!
Home Depot is selling construction materials for paedophiles to build basements to abuse kids!
I think the issue the author is making is not that such videos exist and are hosted on YouTube, but that YouTube has created a system which promotes abusive videos.
When children watch videos on YouTube, they pick another video to watch. Children are driven by known characters, and an innate curiosity about their fears, so the next video they select will be an traumatic video. YouTube’s algorithm is then trained to prioritize abusive videos. Creators (yuck) then create more abusive videos to match the algorithm, and thereby get more views.
Technically, the system is working as intended. Given a list of videos, children would prefer to select one that has their favorite characters and deep seated fears. So more videos like that get produced.
Yes, children should not watch YouTube unsupervised, and people should not be allowed to upload videos that traumatize children. However, both of those things are happening, and in the middle of it, YouTube is effectively promoting child abuse.
A better analogy would be “Ford creates program for child abducters to better find vulnerable children.”
What an extremely weak argument: the children videos depicting violence are themselves abusive. Neither Ford nor Home Depot actively carry the work of the abuser, like Youtube does. Curate all your content or shut down I say.
Not saying the cartoons are right or appropriate, but they're not child abuse unless actual children are molested while producing them (which I don't see how considering it's all computer-generated graphics).