I have my children raised and its probably a good thing because I am too old to keep up with all the new dangers lurking out in the world and in our homes
I have recently viewED news stories of how toys and games can transport your child into a whole "new world" but are you aware of the term “Elsagate” and what it means to our kids?
I had never heard the phrase until my grown daughter gave me a real eye- opening lesson on the term recently and I am still in shock at what I learned.
We had recently discussed how a small child that I adore just loves YouTube Kids and I how I had downloaded it on to my phone so she could access the "children's" app.
I was thinking since it was YouTube for Kids that it must be G-rated.
Was I ever wrong.
"Elsagate" is the term used to describe the controversy surrounding supposedly child-friendly videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids which contain themes that are inappropriate for children.
Most videos under this classification are notable for presenting content such as violence, sexual situations, fetishes, drugs, alcohol, toilet humor, and dangerous or upsetting situations and activities.
The videos often feature popular characters from family-oriented media, sometimes via crossovers, used without legal permission; the term itself references Elsa (a character from the 2013 Disney animated film 'Frozen', who is frequently depicted in such videos).
However, the Elsagate controversy has also included channels such as Toy Freaks that do not feature kid/family-friendly characters but real children, and have raised concern about possible child abuse.
Most videos in this category are either live action films or crude digital animations, although a few channels have been using more elaborate techniques such as clay animation.
Despite YouTube's age restriction policies, these videos are sometimes tagged in such a way to circumvent the inbuilt child safety algorithms, even making their way into YouTube Kids, and are thus difficult to moderate due to the large scale of the platform.
In order to capture search results and attract attention from users, their titles and descriptions feature names of famous characters, as well as keywords like "education", "learn colors", "nursery rhymes", etc.
They also include automatically placed ads, making them lucrative to their owners and to YouTube. Despite the objectionable and often confusing nature of these videos, many attract millions of views.
When I was raising kids, animation and cartoons were pretty much just cartoons but times have changed.
We're not talking about cartoons targeting adults like some of the popular ones on television. These "Elsagate" videos are are marketed as safe for children but in reality are something all together different.
When you look at the thumbnails of the different video offered on Kids YouTube you assume they are Disney characters or other family friendly characters but until you click and watch through the video, you have no indication how dark, perverted and sickening some truly are.
I'd rather not go into detail on some of the things I viewed but I beg any of you that have small children to please research this situation before allowing a child to view these videos that sometimes border on pornography.
Some are violent and many are sexually suggestive. One video even demonstrated hanging and suicide.
Before you hand your child an tablet or smart phone to occupy them while you make dinner or drive, please make sure you have previewed the material before they view it.