Elsagate
[2] In order to capture search results and attract attention from users, their buzzword titles and descriptions featured the names of the fictional characters, as well as keywords such as "education", "learn colors", and "nursery rhymes".
[9] In January 2017, one channel under the control of a YouTube partner in Vietnam, Spiderman Frozen Marvel Superhero Real Life, blocked their Vietnamese subscribers after complaints from parents regarding the content of their videos.
[9] In early February 2017, Tubefilter interviewed one of Webs And Tiaras' creators, Eric, who insisted that the team has "never used any bots or any other method to increase our views."
It also attributed their success to the frequent use of "Freudian concerns", which young children may find fascinating, amusing, or frightening, such as "peeing, pooping, kissing, pregnancy, and the terrifying notion of going to the doctor and getting a shot".
The article also mentioned the existence of "hundreds" of similar videos, ranging from unauthorized but otherwise harmless copies of authentic animations to frightening and gory content.
[17] In November 2017, several newspapers published articles about the YouTube channel Toy Freaks, which had been created two years earlier by a single father named Greg Chism.
[3] On November 6, author James Bridle wrote on Medium about his worry about videos aimed at scaring, hurting, and exploiting children.
[21] The New York Times found that one of the channels featuring counterfeit cartoons, Super Zeus TV, was linked to a website called SuperKidsShop.com, registered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
[3] On November 9, members of the satirical sound collage group Negativland presented an episode of their weekly radio show Over the Edge dedicated to Elsagate.
"'Modern Animal Kids'[22] threads Elsagate through a remix of three '90s episodes of Over the Edge which focused on media for children, all broadcast in the final years before Teletubbies pioneered marketing to the 6- to 18-month-old demographic".
[25] According to a report by China News Service, many Elsagate clips had been re-uploaded onto Chinese video platforms from YouTube, but others were created domestically, involving youngsters being beaten with rulers and children giving each other injections.
And while YouTube Kids disallows inappropriate content and is intended to steer children away from the main app, the efficacy of that method has been called into question.
[7][8] An investigation, published by Wired on 30 March 2021, found dozens of "disturbing" or "grotesque" animated videos targeting Minecraft and Among Us fans that were featured under YouTube's "Topics" or "hashtags" pages for the games.
The magazine argued that these newer discoverability features lacked moderation, and allowed "opportunistic" channels to display questionable or inappropriate content.
[7] In 2022, Newsweek also reported on channels and videos containing similarly inappropriate content or thumbnails, featuring characters from horror games such as Five Nights at Freddy's and Poppy Playtime that were popular with children.
[8] The New York Times quoted pediatrics professor Michael Rich, who considered it upsetting that "characters [children] thought they knew and trusted" were shown behaving in an improper or violent manner.
As part of a broader action, YouTube terminated the channel Toy Freaks, which featured a father (Greg Chism) and his two daughters in potentially abusive situations.
[30][31][32] It was also revealed in the media that many videos featuring minors – frequently uploaded by the children themselves and showing innocent content – had attracted comments from pedophiles and other groups.
