YouTube Kids app repeatedly displayed inappropriate and disturbing content to children, including violent cartoons, conspiracy theories, and adult content, despite being marketed as a safe platform for kids under 13.
YouTube Kids, launched in 2015 by Google for children of preschool age and older with over 11 million weekly viewers, has been repeatedly criticized for displaying inappropriate content to children. The app uses algorithms to filter content from the main YouTube site, but investigations found disturbing videos including violent cartoons featuring popular characters like Peppa Pig and Disney characters in inappropriate situations, conspiracy theory videos by David Icke claiming aliens built pyramids and lizard people rule the world, videos showing characters committing suicide or violence, and content with profanity and sexual themes. Parents discovered videos showing Mickey Mouse characters shooting each other, Peppa Pig being tortured at a dentist, and instructions on dangerous activities like making chemical weapons and tying nooses. The BBC found hundreds of such videos easily accessible through YouTube's recommendation algorithm. Despite YouTube's claims of human moderation and machine learning filters, the company admitted that only 0.005% of content is flagged as inappropriate, but acknowledged the system is imperfect. YouTube has implemented new policies including age-restricting inappropriate content and allowing parents to select trusted channels, but critics argue the fundamental problem of using algorithms to moderate content at scale for children remains unsolved.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI that exposes users to harmful, abusive, unsafe or inappropriate content. May involve providing advice or encouraging action. Examples of toxic content include hate speech, violence, extremism, illegal acts, or child sexual abuse material, as well as content that violates community norms such as profanity, inflammatory political speech, or pornography.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed