View numbers measure in the tens and hundreds of thousands, with some clocking up millions of views. Other YouTube profiles sharing these videos are anonymous, minimally filled out profiles that exist only to share videos of young children. We've seen it accompanied by adverts for Fiat and Shen Yun.Īlthough some prominent YouTube channels have been taken down over child abuse revelations, we were still able to find a number dedicated to “pre-teen models” and groups of young girls bathing, doing stretches and talking through their morning routines. In one monetised video with 410,300 views, a prepubescent girl performs a dance routine in a dingy flat, flashing the camera half-way through in a definitely-illegal, distressingly exploitative bare crotch shot that’s shared in the comments with a time stamp. Worse still, YouTube doesn’t just recommend you watch more videos of children innocently playing, its algorithm specifically suggests videos that are seemingly popular with other paedophiles, most of which have hundreds of thousands of views and dozens of disturbing comments. YouTube says that it’s 99 per cent effective at ensuring that adverts only appear on appropriate content and that it takes every instance of ads showing up where they shouldn’t very seriously.īut with a blank YouTube account, and a couple of quick searches, hundreds of videos that are seemingly popular with paedophiles are surfaced by YouTube’s recommendation system. We would never knowingly associate ourselves with channels like this.” “We have a strict policy against advertising alongside harmful or offensive content.

“We’re absolutely horrified and have reached out to YouTube to rectify this immediately,” a Grammarly spokesperson said. The video shows the child and her friend doing yoga and is accompanied by pre-roll advertising from L’Oreal. On one video, a young girl appears to ask another commenter why one of the videos had made him “grow”. On some videos, confused children who have uploaded videos of them playing in the garden respond to comments asking them how old they are. Videos of little girls playing Twister, doing gymnastics, playing in the pool and eating ice lollies are all routinely descended upon by hordes of semi-anonymous commenters, sharing time codes for crotch shots, directing other people to similar videos of children and exchanging phone numbers along with a promise to swap more videos via WhatsApp or Kik.

Hide yo kids song