TULSA - A local mother said she was shocked at what came across her kids' electronics on a kid-friendly app.
“I would consider them a sexual predator," she said.
The woman is staying anonymous to protect her and her children.
“It’s just exposing them to things that children of that age shouldn’t even be exposed to.”
But said what happened to her kids needs to be out in the open.
The other day she said her toddler opened the YouTube Kids app.
“She tried to lookup something and it pulled up Bubble Guppies.”
Nothing was out of the ordinary until...
“That’s when we saw that it pulled up Bubble Guppies, including this other Bubble Guppy video."
The same characters her kids watch on TV appeared, committing scandalous acts that aren't safe for daytime television.
“That’s something I’ve heard of, and we’ve received complaints about, but the difficulty for police is these types of videos are not illegal," said Detective Josh Showman of the Tulsa Police Department's Cyber Crimes Division.
He said the department can't do anything about it, but insists parents can.
“Your child may be the first person viewing a video and so the algorithm YouTube uses won’t have previously flagged those videos as adult-related.”
Like this mom, you need to flag the video and mark it offensive.
Detective Showman saying there could be more to the risque videos.
“To trick children into viewing certain sexually-wise content as a way to groom them, and possibly make contact with them.”
Mom, upset seeing how many inappropriate videos like this one exist.
The worst part about it, your kids could be exposed to these images while you're in the room.
This mom told 2 Works for You based on sound alone there's very little to suggest anything is wrong.
In a statement to 2 Works for You, YouTube stated:
"We work to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family-friendly as possible and take feedback very seriously. We appreciate people drawing problematic content to our attention, and make it easy for anyone to flag a video. Flagged videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don't belong in the app are removed within hours. For parents who want a more restricted experience, we recommend that they turn off the Search feature in the app."
Adding the following points:
•Videos available in the app are determined by a mix of algorithmic filtering, user input and human review. For information on how videos are selected for the app and information on community flagging please take a look here[support.google.com] and here[support.google.com]. Flagged videos are reviewed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will be removed from the YouTube Kids app if necessary.
•We work hard to offer a family friendly experience on the app, but no automated system is perfect. If parents find a video they’re concerned about, we ask that they flag it for us by tapping [the three dots] on the video. This helps make YouTube Kids better for everyone.
“It’s disturbing and as a mom it makes me angry," the mother said.
Admitting it's time to up her game.
“Just proves to me that it’s still completely in my hands.”
TPD said to keep kids completely safe, you shouldn't let them use the internet unsupervised.
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