Google’s awesome content moderation bots are at it again. After doing things like including suicide instructions in a kid’s video and the whole Elsagate problem before, YouTube is now marking a horror video as “for kids.” Worst of all, this is against the creator’s wishes. The video was previously marked as 18+, and YouTube decided it was for kids and won’t let the creator restore the content rating.
The video in question is from the horror series Local58TV. The creator, Kirs Straub, checked his account over the weekend to discover that his non-children content has been spotted by YouTube’s content moderation AI and has been automatically flagged for children.
Congratulations @youtube on the decision to designate automatically @LOCAL58TV‘s “show for kids” as FOR KIDS, despite setting it as inappropriate for kids. I also can’t voluntarily change it without an *appeal* pic.twitter.com/dnhmzL9hbi
— Kris Straub (@krisstraub) July 5, 2022
“For kids” in this context means that Google has marked the video for inclusion in the “YouTube Kids” app, a separate interface for YouTube that should only show a “safe” curated piece of YouTube. The “Kids” flag also means the video must comply with the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), so comments are disabled.
Local58TV has millions of views across its nine videos and is famous enough to have a Wikipedia page. The channel’s about page describes itself as “ANALOG HORROR AT 476 MHz. Disturbing shorts in Kris Straub’s found footage/VHS aesthetic.” The channel’s most popular video, “Contingency,” is a fake public service announcement from the “US Department for the Preservation of American Dignity.” The message, set to an ultra-creepy rendition of The star-strewn banner, declares that America has lost the war and had to surrender. Before the occupiers arrive, you can “take America with you” by killing your family/committing suicide. The video continues with instructions. This is clearly not the type of channel that is for kids!
However, YouTube doesn’t get the Local58TV vibe. It automatically marked one episode, titled “Show For Children”, as For Kids. You can see how an AI bot can get its hands dirty from that title, but it immediately says “Not for kids” in the description, and the creator, Straub, originally set the video’s age rating to “18+” when it was uploaded .
The episode is a black and white cartoon in which a cute cartoon skeleton wanders around a graveyard in search of a cute cartoon girlfriend, only to find gruesome, more realistic skeletons and other creatures in the open graves. At the end of the video, seemingly out of depression, the cute skeleton lies down in a grave and dies, turning into a realistic skeleton. The cartoon is something that an AI bot might not understand, but a human could see right away that the disturbing video is not kid-friendly. YouTube certainly doesn’t hurt for money that generated $28.8 billion in revenue last year, but it doesn’t hire a significant number of human moderators.
Not only did YouTube flag a video that was explicitly marked “inappropriate for kids” as “made for kids,” but the creator can no longer edit it. The video’s content is now labeled “Made for Kids (Set by YouTube)” and Straub is forced to file an appeal with YouTube to correct the video’s age rating.
Even if you use robots for moderation, it doesn’t make sense for YouTube to be in this position. For every single video upload, YouTube asks if a video is kid-friendly or not. Since YouTube already has this data, it’s not clear why it would ever attempt to automatically categorize videos, especially by lowering an age rating that was explicitly set as “adults only.” For something as delicate and subjective as whether or not a child views certain content, it seems like Google needs to be careful.
At the time of going to press, Straub made the issue public 20 hours ago and it has not yet been resolved. The Twitter account “Team YouTube” said the ‘investigation’ the complaint nine hours ago. You can tell the video is still marked for kids because of the disabled comments section and the “Try YouTube Kids!” ad at the bottom. You’ll also only get suggestions for other “kids” content, which at first glance don’t seem to have as much death in them as the usual Local58TV content.
