Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatise, and abuse children, automatically and at scale, and it forces me to question my own beliefs about the internet, at every level. I’ve seen family members and friend’s children plugged into Peppa Pig and nursery rhyme videos, and it makes them happy and gives everyone a break, so OK.īut I don’t even have kids and right now I just want to burn the whole thing down. I see kids engrossed in screens all the time, in pushchairs and in restaurants, and there’s always a bit of a Luddite twinge there, but I am not a parent, and I’m not making parental judgments for or on anyone else.

I’ve also been aware for some time of the increasingly symbiotic relationship between younger children and YouTube. And this belief broadens into attitudes about the role of the internet in public life as whole. I would want my kids to have the same opportunities to explore and grow and express themselves as I did. I understand that this is a natural evolution of attitudes which happens with age, and at some point this question might be a lot less hypothetical. And I find the question increasingly difficult to answer. One of the thus-far hypothetical questions I ask myself frequently is how I would feel about my own children having the same kind of access to the internet today. I state this at the outset because thinking through the implications of the problem I am going to describe troubles my own assumptions and prejudices in significant ways. I have always been a critical proponent of the internet and everything it has brought, and broadly considered it to be emancipatory and beneficial. The culture, politics, and interpersonal relationships which I consider to be central to my identity were shaped by the internet, in ways that I have always considered to be beneficial to me personally. It gave me access to a lot of things which were totally inappropriate for a young teenager, but it was OK.

I had a computer with internet access in my bedroom from the age of 13.

You don’t have to read it, and are advised to take caution exploring further.Īs someone who grew up on the internet, I credit it as one of the most important influences on who I am today. Please be advised: this essay describes disturbing things and links to disturbing graphic and video content. I usually write on my own blog, but frankly I don’t want what I’m talking about here anywhere near my own site. I’m a writer and artist concerned with technology and culture.

Something affects me