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Something Is Wrong on the Internet

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Nov 6, 2017.

  1. Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    James Bridle, writing at Medium:


    Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level. Much of what I am going to describe next has been covered elsewhere, although none of the mainstream coverage I’ve seen has really grasped the implications of what seems to be occurring.

    This entire story is jaw-dropping.

     
  2. White

    Cum for the Cum God. Prestigious

    That reads like a pitch for an episode of Black Mirror.
     
  3. StormAndTheSun

    insects come to life Supporter

    Real life is basically an episode of Black Mirror. This kind of stuff makes me afraid to have kids
     
    Jusscali, Raku and Aaron Mook like this.
  4. jpmalone4

    Stay Lucky Supporter

    I read the NYT article about this on Sunday, and it just baffles me - especially the fact that this kind of stuff is in any way lucrative to make. No one should be getting paid to terrorize children like that, especially with such shit videos.
     
  5. Turkeylegz

    Trusted

    I've spent 9 years working with children in a computer class. The shift from software to internet based entertainment has made it so hard to monitor content on a larger scale. Although parental controls are a heaven sent, they are not a sure thing.

    I think more attention should be drawn to the content on the internet. It has become toxic past the point of the regular cess pits such as 4chan.
     
    beachdude42, Philll and CoffeeEyes17 like this.
  6. red8ge

    Regular

    was super skeptical at the beginning of the article but watching the video "buried alive" posted at the bottom is making me genuinely extremely uncomfortable and i really have no idea how a kid brain would even process this shit
     
  7. Bryan Diem

    Trusted

    The most "no shit Sherlock" headline ever, haha
     
    ejsz likes this.
  8. Kuri44

    Guest

    I’m about 7 min into the BURIED ALIVE Outdoor Playground video and I’m pretty entertained. Seeing Spider-Man, Joker, Venom, Hulk, and Batman Drive through McDonalds on motorcycles and change to the colors of the burgers they ate was dope.

    But in all seriousness, really interesting and well written/articulated article.
     
  9. JRGComedy

    Trusted Supporter

    What the fucking fuck
     
    Jusscali likes this.
  10. TheoW593

    Regular

    This guy REALLY avoids linking some of the weirder shit. Injections, broken teeth, dissections, eating poop, debasement, etc ALL featuring spider-man, Elsa, the joker, and venom.

    Someone said it best: it's as if an AI made these. Loose fragmented collages of the same "topical" ideas in a very weird, unnerving way
     
  11. fourstarters

    Team Wiggum

    There’s an cutesy animated video that pops up in my niece’s suggested feed from time to time where Maui gets Moana pregnant. That’s enough internet for me.
     
    Turkeylegz likes this.
  12. DandonTRJ

    ~~~ヾ(^∇^ Supporter

    At the last law firm I worked at, one of the other attorneys had a two-year-old daughter who would come in with her from time to time. She loved to sit on my lap and watch YouTube videos, usually of animals, but as we started to poke around the exact sphere of content this article highlights, shit got weird fast. This is one of the videos she requested most often, and after conferring with multiple friends, we’ve come to the conclusion that live-action Elsa crushing cheese balls on a trampoline with a dog has to be a fetish. Like, someone is definitely getting off to this.

     
    marceting and JRGComedy like this.
  13. RileyWitiw

    more like absolutepop.net Supporter

    Completely bizarre!
     
  14. morken

    Not everything means something, honey Supporter

    This is exactly the reason why we had to tell my 4 year old daughter that YouTube was "broken", and remove all access to it on our ipad. The surprise egg and finger family craze was one thing, but she increasingly landed on really disturbing videos. Really scary stuff. The "other videos" scroll on the right side of YouTube is dangerous.
     
    beachdude42, Brent and popdisaster00 like this.
  15. PandaBear!

    Trusted Prestigious

    Very unnerving article. This summarisation in particular is just so depressing: "What concerns me is that this is just one aspect of a kind of infrastructural violence being done to all of us, all of the time, and we’re still struggling to find a way to even talk about it, to describe its mechanisms and its actions and its effects".

    I don't know whether it was my personal naivety/ignorance that I didn't notice before, but 2016-17 is when I really started to realise how out of hand & all-consuming the internet is becoming. It is already so damaging in so many ways and it is the responsibility of the giants like Google/Youtube/Facebook/Twitter to start taking real, purposeful action to prevent and minimize that damage imo.
     
    red8ge likes this.
  16. Serenity Now Nov 7, 2017
    (Last edited: Nov 7, 2017)
    Serenity Now

    deliver us from e-mail Supporter

    Definitely some weird/unnerving themes in these videos.

    Reminds me that I grew up watching Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, and Pete & Pete starting at age 9 though. Looking back on those shows now, there's definitely A LOT of adult themes and jarring animation, but i turned out ok.

    Right? Right?!

     
    beachdude42, Raku and suicidesaints like this.
  17. tshreve

    Metalicca

    Yeah honestly that video was fucking dank I don’t get what the big deal is
     
    Kuri44 likes this.
  18. Behind the Barricade

    https://www.behindthecade.com

    I'll always remember that one episode of Rocko's Modern Life where Rocko lost his job and became a phone sex operator. The punchline was Mrs. Bighead calling in and both of them realizing who they were speaking with and promptly hanging up. That episode came out in 93 and was on replay for years after. I recently watched a FB video about how messed up 90s cartoons were and I instantly remembered being 9 years old watching that scene and not understanding it. Back when I was growing up, it was always there but somewhat hidden. These kids today have no shot at a somewhat innocent life. I just saw a video of Spiderman pissing on Elsa in a tub and the way it was titled, you would think it was a normal video.
     
    Serenity Now and Turkeylegz like this.
  19. Brent

    Trusted Prestigious

    Same here. Our daugter turns 5 next month and we've caught her watching some seriously questionable animation and live vids on the YouTube Kids app so we've taken it off all devices and have only kept PBS Kids and Disney Jr for when we do allow screen time.
     
    beachdude42, morken and Turkeylegz like this.
  20. Loki

    God of mischief

    I have been hesitant to go into the details of my profession here on the boards but I will say this - this goes way deeper than even this article's darkest suggestions. There are a lot of things hiding in plain sight on the most mainstream of internet hubs...
     
  21. Fucking Dustin

    Please click "like" Supporter

    I hope by your profession, you're not referring to the fact that you work for a place that takes part in the manufacturing of this filth

    But if you can't say anything a simple "no" to that will suffice, I won't make you sell out any kind of anonymity you're required if you aren't taking part in it
     
    Loki likes this.
  22. Fucking Dustin

    Please click "like" Supporter

    My kids definitely used to watch those "surprise egg" videos. Luckily none of it got too weird and they couldn't navigate it on their own, but once I started hearing horror stories any kind of YouTube access got nixed right away. It's sad how much we have to shelter our kids from things like this...like, it's one thing to monitor their internet access because that's obviously not a big deal, but every kid has a smartphone now and they're gonna be going to school with other kids with this stuff and ugh. It's horrific thinking about the future.
     
    SlappinCups and morken like this.
  23. theagentcoma

    yeah good okay Prestigious

    Well this is disturbing as hell
     
  24. daldalian

    hopelessly yours, Alabama

    As terrifying as it is that this applies to kids, I'm conflicted about being even more afraid of how the internet is affecting and priming adults for certain attitudes and viewpoints.

    It makes me want to unplug from everything - but then how would I know what is going on in the world?

    Or do I even know the truth of what goes on in the world now?

    :tear:
     
  25. Jackbo487

    Regular

    wow so yeah, that article was....distressing on so many levels