What’s the deal with gaming videos? Do game streamers tend to be Nazis? Seems like a strange place to push right-wing propaganda.
Comment on YouTube to be included in Australia’s social media ban for children under 16
throbbing_banjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoWhile all of that might be true, YouTube is also a for-profit cesspool of trash content, hate speech, and misinformation. An entire generation of gen z manosphere Nazi bootlickers got where they are watching “gaming videos” on YouTube.
It auto plays by default and their algorithms are dogshit, so you might start watching an educational video with your kid, but end up on a flat earth video fifteen minutes later, or much much worse.
When my son was younger, we severely limited his YouTube time and closely monitored what he was watching on it. Most parents don’t do that.
I dislike legislation like this too, but we’re not talking about PBS or a library here. Kids truly shouldn’t be on YouTube unattended.
corroded@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Look up gamergate and Steve Bannon
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Seems like a strange place to push right-wing propaganda.
Gamers are easy to rile up, already have exposure to a lot of counter culture language in VC, and generally young or ignorant enough that they can’t see the obvious propaganda they’re being fed. Add into that content creators that intermix rightwing talking points and you can slowly poison their minds into becoming Nazi shitbags.
As the other commenter mentioned, gamergate is where all this shit first came up, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t there with the people who fell for the poison. I was just aware enough of what I was seeing to pull away from that culture before it really poisoned my mind.
mhague@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think there’s not much Nazi gamer shit out there because it’s incredibly rare for any to slip into my recommendations.
But if I let YouTube go it would probably take me from normal people like anyaustin to hype people like xQc. And then from there all the popular people can show up, including asmonmold.
stsquad@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Currently my kids can only watch YouTube on a shared account on the TV. They haven’t been exposed to any of the gift stuff as far as I can tell but we do regularly weed the history and subscriptions to keep it vaguely on track. While each of the kids have their own favourite creators we also have found a number of educational and comedy channels we’ll watch with them on the account.
The bigger challenge comes with homework as once in secondary school the teachers regularly link to YouTube videos as an intro to a particular homework topic. Although their accounts are registered as kids accounts under our indirect control I keep having to move their pc out of the restricted group on the router because for some reason Eero prevents some videos from playing which from my point of view are fine. I dread to think what parents who aren’t comfortable debugging network failures do, probably drop restrictions all together in frustration.
IllNess@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Parenting should stay with parents. The more power the government gets, the more they will abuse it. When companies are restricted, they will see this as an opportunity to better identify adults better.
throbbing_banjo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The expression “it takes a village to raise a child” applies here. It’s impossible for a parent to be with their child at all times. Children aren’t always at home, and a lot of parents suck, don’t care, or are just misinformed. YouTube is available everywhere, including at schools and libraries. Look at it like smoking. We recognize that cigarettes are dangerous and cause cancer, therefore children can’t buy them. Social media companies - and let’s stop pretending YouTube isn’t social media, it very much is - are today’s big tobacco. They need regulated, and not doing so it’s causing tremendous societal harm.
IllNess@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
I understand parents can’t be around their children 24/7. Companies and organizations have a lot of products already to restrict and limit internet access. Schools and libraries should use these tools as they or as their community sees fit.
If you want to compare it to tobacco products, the main difference is to identify as an adult all you need is an ID. One person at the cashier sees it and it’s done. Online activity is more personal. It allows companies and social media to be even more toxic to adults by being able to identify adults better.
Also kids, no matter how restricted it is, will smoke if they wanted to. The same will happen with these social media restrictions excepts that adults will suffer. This will be only the beginning. More and more restrictions will come from this. That’s just how governments work.
Red flags should go up automatically with these “save the children” laws.