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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the serious-mental-health-issues dept.

Tips for committing suicide are appearing in children's cartoons on YouTube and the YouTube Kids app.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/youtube-kids-cartoons-include-tips-for-committing-suicide-docs-warn/

YouTube Kids is theoretically a curated collection of videos that are safe for kids. Apparently, someone forgot to tell YouTube/Google that. Sure, YouTube probably has some butt covering clause in their EULA. That doesn't excuse such an oversight, though. It's very easy to see overworked, stressed parents, giving their kids access to YouTube/YouTube Kids. Kids have enough to deal with, without having to deal with grown-ups twisted thoughts. This seems more like insidious minds at work to me. What do you think?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:49PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:49PM (#807159)

    I fixed it at the DNS level in our house's router.
    "youtube.com" is mapped to 172.0.0.1
    That means no YouTube in the house (except for adults with cell phones).
    YouTube is unmitigated shit for young children.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:01PM (#807171)

    What the fuck is "172-0-0-1.lightspeed.brhmal.sbcglobal.net" and why do you want your kids watching videos from there?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:07PM (#807179)

    Might wanna check that IP buddy!
    AT&T & NSA appear to be getting some traffic you thought was being blackholed...
    https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-172-0-0-0-1/pft?s=172.0.0.1 [arin.net]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (#807240)

      Nah, it works fine. I just setup my subnet mask to 0.0.0.0 so no traffic ever leaves the local side of the router.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by pTamok on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (5 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (#807241)

    I fixed it at the DNS level in our house's router.
    "youtube.com" is mapped to 172.0.0.1
    That means no YouTube in the house (except for adults with cell phones).
    YouTube is unmitigated shit for young children.

    So your kids learn how to bypass such things...
    1) Put the YouTube IP addresses into the local hosts file on their PCs.
    2) Point the local devices DNS at something other than the local router - like Googles 8.8.8.8
    3) Use DNS over HTTPS or DNS over TLS
    4) Set up a mobile phone in Internet Sharing/Tethering mode and use that connection for DNS resolving
    5) Use a VPN.

    Kids are pretty resourceful in finding ways around restrictions. All it takes is one in their peer group to find a solution, and it spreads like wildfire.

    YouTube is not a babysitter. Until the kids are old enough to deal with the challenges of non kid-friendly videos, they need to be supervised, which means no watching of YouTube without having a responsible adult in the room, and the screen easily visible. If you can't do this, password lock the devices so the kids don't get to use them without you around. This will help, but doesn't stop them watching non kid-friendly stuff in other people's houses. So you need to educate them before this becomes a problem. This will be at a much lower age than you expect. The world is not a kid's playground, so you need to teach them how to deal with the world as soon as is practical - the object is not to control their lives, but to make them capable of being independent and coping with nasty shocks along the way. Give them a safe environment to practice in, emphasize that they can make mistakes in the safe environment, but that the world is a lot less forgiving.

    Seeing a video that upsets them should not cause them to be concerned that they will be punished for watching the wrong things. Ideally it is a chance to learn (a) that the world can be nasty (b) that parents can't protect you from bad experiences no matter how much they might want to (c) that parents can provide a safe and caring environment to recover from shocks (d) how to avoid similar shocks in future.

    Good parenting is hard, and under-appreciated.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:54PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:54PM (#807310) Journal

      I'm not as concerned about a kid that could bypass the safeguards the parent has put up. Otherwise, I pretty much agree with what you're saying there.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:54PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:54PM (#807350)

      My kids are 10 and 5 with no PCs.
      I think I'm OK, but thank you for your genuine concern.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:47AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:47AM (#807382)

        with no PCs.

        I was programming a C128 and a Kaypro when I was 10. Same for all my siblings, give or take which computer(s).
        You think you're doing your kids a favor by only letting them use a locked-down tablet, but you're part of the problem here.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:56AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:56AM (#807387)

          You're reading an awful lot into my mind, motives, and parenting.
          It seems more like you are projecting your own issues onto other people.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:32AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:32AM (#807407)

            Yet, whatever you imagine my "issues" to be, I'm not the one teaching the next generation to be mindless users of appliances. Children are better off with a PC and no network than a network and no PC.

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:58PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:58PM (#807354)

    Autistic fuckheads can't look past a typo.
    Go ahead and use that to not even address what I was talking about.
    Loser nerds... mostly childless...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:41AM (#807378)

      Dumbass claims to have answer, can't even spell his "answer".
      Too assblasted to let it go, he is compelled to respond and let everyone know they got under his skin.
      Way to go, sexy alpha man.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:53AM (#807383)

        Yet you HAD to reply to my comment. Who has problems letting it go? ;-)
        Autistic fuckhead.