500 signatures reached
To: Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube
Racists are recruiting kids on YouTube!
White supremacists are using the Internet to recruit children and YouTube is helping them! Every day, YouTube serves an unending stream of racist and fringe conspiracy videos to vulnerable children. Each time a child watches one radicalizing video, the algorithm often serves up more just like it, luring children to adopt racist ideology and join dangerous groups. There is too much of this content for YouTube to moderate -- 500 hours uploaded every minute; But YouTube can stop streaming hate to our kids.
Tell YouTube to fix their algorithm and stop the stream of hate.
Why is this important?
Hate groups are targeting children to join them, and it is working. White supremacist movements are massively exploding in the US, facilitated by tech platforms like YouTube where vulnerable young people are recruited and radicalized. More than half of kids 8 and up have reported watching YouTube every day, and YouTube is cited by researchers as the primary source for radicalization of young people online. Here’s what happens:
A kid searches for something that interests them on YouTube, like their favorite video game. After they watch that video, YouTube recommends another based on their algorithm, which often plays automatically. This way, kids and teens can get sucked into watching hours of increasingly extreme content -- something white supremacist recruiters actively exploit.
The solution is clear: YouTube must fix algorithm-driven recommendations to stop promoting hate and default auto-play. Please, join us in asking YouTube to stop recommending white supremacy to children.