A pediatrician in Florida has found a disturbing clip inserted into videos children watch on YouTube and YouTube Kids.
Suicide Instructions Spliced Into Children's Videos
Free Hess, from Gainesville, Florida, found a 9-second-long clip that appeared to encourage children to harm themselves.
Hess was watching cartoons with her son on YouTube Kids, when 4 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, the cartoon showed a clip of a man in sunglasses who gave instruction to children how to slit their wrists.
"Remember, kids, sideways for attention, longways for results," the man said before walking off screen, and the video quickly flipping back to the cartoon.
Hess saw the video back in July and called for different groups to report the video so it gets removed from the site. Hess said it took a week before YouTube Kids took down the disturbing video. Parents, however, continue finding several other cartoons that contain the same clip, some posted on YouTube.
YouTuber Filthy Frank
The man featured in the clip is YouTuber Filthy Frank, who also known by his stage name Joji.
There is, however, no evidence that the man, whose real name is George Miller, was involved in creating the videos.
Miller, who has more than 6.2 million subscribers on YouTube, is a 26-year-old Japanese singer, song writer, and comedian, who now lives in the United States. He started a viral dance craze known as the Harlem Shake.
"He behaves and reacts excessively to everything expressly to highlight the ridiculousness of racism, misogyny, legalism, injustice, ignorance and other social blights. He also sets an example to show how easy it is in the social media for any zany material to gain traction/followings by simply sharing unsavoury opinions and joking about topics many find offensive," Miller described himself.
Miller retired his channel in 2017 to focus on his music career.
