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Suicide Instructions Spliced into Kids’ Cartoons on YouTube and YouTube Kids

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

Freeman writes:

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, @09:21PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:21PM (#807269)

    Different AC here.

    I was 10 when I first thought about killing myself. That was forty years ago, way before the internet. I wonder if I'd had today's access to info back then, if I would have done it. Sure, Cub Scouts was good at teaching how to tie the noose knot, but finding out how long you had to make the rope to insure the drop broke your neck was impossible to come by at the local library. I figured out how to use the family's shotgun, and that I could push the trigger with my toe while the muzzle was in my mouth, but what angle should I put the barrel at to make sure my brains were blown out rather than just blowing off my jaw? I didn't want to be even more of a freak than I was.

    Ignorance of how to do it properly is mostly what kept me alive. That and wanting to see the "final" two Star Wars movies. I was 17 when Return of the Jedi finally came out... you have no idea how much I hate Ewoks. I remember sitting in the theater thinking "I lived for this shit?".

    I suppose Darwin won, though, since I never had kids. Even when I was still a kid, I knew I didn't want to have any, since if I had a kid I'd probably love them, and I wouldn't want to put anyone I loved through the hell that life is.

    I honestly don't think I'd have made it as a kid through today's world.

  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:53AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:53AM (#807384) Homepage

    " Ignorance of how to do it properly is mostly what kept me alive. That and wanting to see the "final" two Star Wars movies. I was 17 when Return of the Jedi finally came out... you have no idea how much I hate Ewoks. I remember sitting in the theater thinking "I lived for this shit?". "

    The larger shame is that you also lived to see Jar Jar Binks be a thing. I tried to hang myself with my own tongue Jar-Jar style when I had to sit through Episode I, but stayed sane by shouting "MuthaFUCKA!" at the screen whenever Samuel L. Jackson was on.