How far is too far when it comes to violence on YouTube?

[WickedLiquid]

A co-worker of mine who is also a gamer insisted I watch a video where these guys show what Mortal Kombat fatalities would look like in real life.

Naturally that sounds horrifying but I knew it was YouTube so how bad could it be? Probablt just a bunch of college kids messing around with prosthetics right? Erm, well no it was absolutely disgusting. Then out of morbid curiosity I checked out their channel where they have just as equally disturbing and violent content. One video in particular really got me where Ronald McDonald murdered children in horrible and disturbing ways. This is suposed to be dark humour but it was pretty extreme.

Obviously it's all fake and it's my own damn fault for watching these videos. But it got me thinking that kids can access this stuff with ease. A flagged video isn't going to stop a kid with a YouTube account from watching Ronald strangle the life out of a six year old then rip out another victim's tongue. If I watched that when I was a kid I would have had nightmares for sure.

The real idiocy here is we know videos with nudity would be pulled off YouTube immediately while explicit violence and gore is accepted.

So have we come to a point now where we've gone too far? And why is there such a strong tolerance for violence and not nudity?

 

[MattAY]

There is nudity on Youtube my good man. Believe me! Its documentary based but it's there!

But porn and everything 18+ has always been easily accessible, you search the right thing and anything pops up really. Always been a problem, never a solution is found - alas it is the internet!

 

[UghRochester]

Always been a problem, never a solution is found - alas it is the internet!

Adding on, there are more disturbing things than extreme fake violence on YouTube. Like leaked beheadings and that ignorant ass girl catching a tortoise on fire and throwing it to the ground, you know what I'm talking, it's been on Facebook.

 

[Green_Lantern]

I suppose it doesn't matter a whole lot. Pretty much anyone who knows how to get around a content block probably knows about liveleak.

 

[Master_Craig]

It sucks, but there's not much we can do about it.

I remember one of the kids at my judo club, who was twelve at the time back in 2013... he says to me "I'm gonna buy a PS3" and I say "That's awesome, man. What games are you going to get?"

"The Last of Us."

I stopped and paused. The game is rated R18+ here and it's R18+ for a very good reason. So I approached his father after class and I told him about The Last of Us and how it wouldn't be appropriate for a twelve year old. His father agreed with me after listening to what I had to say.

A week later, the kid approaches me and says "I got my PS3, but I didn't get The Last of Us." so I said "Sorry man, that would be my fault. I spoke to your dad about it."

"It's okay. I watched it all on YouTube."

So I try to prevent this kid from playing a game he shouldn't be playing and well, yeah, he accesses it all on YouTube.

I also agree with WickedLiquid about all the extreme violence. It shouldn't really be there, it's easily accessible and it'll probably never stop.

When I was younger, a guy I knew once sent me a video which is security camera footage inside a police station. It lasts for five minutes where a guy is sitting in an interrogation room. My friend told me to watch it until the end because it's "really funny"... and at the end, the guy pulls a gun out from his pants and shoots himself in the mouth.

This guy and I - we're not friends anymore.

 

[Sourdeez]

Rick and Morty had a moment in which Rick asked if Morty was the type to click on beheading videos online. Rick said "Of course I do"


Love Rick and Morty.

 

[StudioTan]

I suppose it doesn't matter a whole lot. Pretty much anyone who knows how to get around a content block probably knows about liveleak.

I used to frequent this site but was turned off by the overwhelming amount of chauvinism and bigotry exhibited by the community. (I feel like a broken record today.)

 

[C_nate]

And why is there such a strong tolerance for violence and not nudity?

Good 'ol American values of course.

I kinda gave up talking about it, but there is a serious double standard when it comes to that.

If you haven't seen it yet, watch the documentary "This film has not yet been rated" to see how screwed up we are in terms of what kind of content is more offensive than others.

You can have Wolverine kill 100 people in Japan, but as long as limbs and innards are not flying all over (which would be the most likely realistic outcome of slashing and stabbing people with your super sharp hand claws) you can get away with a pg-13 rating.

If you say Fuck more than once though, it's an automatic R. Same goes for titties.

Torture porn horror movies come out every week just about but when was the last time there was a major hollywood movie like 91/2 weeks or Unfaithful?

I lack the morbid curiosity that other people I know have. I watched the Daniel Pearl thing way back and decided I don't need to be witness to those kinds of things. Hearing and reading about them are bad enough.

Sadly, it's just the way our society is. Violence is glorified and celebrated and nudity and bad words are shunned (but often tied together with violence to "heighten" it)

You can show a male corpse, hollowed out like a cantaloupe on a medical examiners table on CSI whatever, during prime time tv but you will never see nudity or hear bad words.

Always thought it was beyond strange.

 

[Sourdeez]

MTV can show a movie where underage kids use illegal drugs, they can have underage sex, They can even show someone shooting a gun at the police...... but they still can't say the word "fuck"


Anyways, I don't do well with real life gore. My girlfriend on the other hand is a Vet Tech and loves to see gore. Should I be worried? 8)

 

[WickedLiquid]

I just find it hilarious how you've got NBC and Fox constantly pulling off videos from YouTube due to copyright infringement yet something with extreme gore and violence is perfectly acceptable. I don't have kids but I would rather they watch SNL's More Cowbell than someone's head spilt open with a table saw.

As parents it's their job to protect kids from restricted content but with the Internet it just seems futile.

 

[C_nate]

As parents it's their job to protect kids from restricted content but with the Internet it just seems futile.

It is. That is why you can't. And for the most part, I don't try to. I just let them know that some things aren't age appropriate for them yet. If they see something that is a little too adult for them, whether it is language or nudity or violence, I let them know that isn't for them yet. And after going through it a few times they know by now. My son started watching one video and the guy started cursing right away and before I could even turn around he shut it off and said, "I know dad, that one isn't for kids."

I don't try to prevent it from existing, or to shield them from it. I let them know that kind of stuff exists, but that it is for grown ups. And they get it. They have pretty good self control. For now away. I know that will change but I'll deal with it then.

Some groups like to use kids to say "This or that should be banned" and I don't like that. Even as someone with kids, I don't believe in censoring stuff. And this is coming from someone who hates movies like Hostel.

As for how much of it should be allowed on youtube and how easy it is to access is another story. In a way I think it is a losing battle because as soon as they take it down one place, it will pop right back up somewhere else.

 

[madster111]

Kids today aren't any different from those us who were kids 10-20 years ago, and we all watched the fucked up things and turned out more or less fine.
Then again, most of us probably didn't have private internet access until we were teenagers, not like today when 7/8 year olds get handed ipads and told to go nuts.

Iunno man, comes down to parenting. The internet is the collective mass of humanity, and therefore filled with sick shit, so it shouldn't just be browsed by preteens with no supervision.
Restrict your kids shit until they're old enough to learn how to defeat it on their own, once they're at that stage they're pretty much ready to learn how the world works.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

The same sick shit, as Madster put it, was around when grandpa Bretimus was a tyke but the ease of access was totally lower. Seeing boobs meant finding a nudie mag at a friends house. Video stores and theaters wouldn't rent you R movies. But all of that is bypassed by the Internet and readily available and in quantities that are beyond reason.

We have a pretty regular talk with the 9 and 8 year old about what is appropriate some of it is reactionary and some is proactive. I agree that there is a double standard between sex and violence. My kids are pretty sheltered when it comes to both. By their age I had already been exposed to both. My biggest worry is about them Knowing how to react, how to comprehend what is going on. I know they'll see stuff but I protect them from things they can't process for the time being. I mean one of them can't process aliens in movies and has nightmares and thinks they might be out there wait to snatch him. How is he going to react to a video where a guy gets beheaded...and it is real?

But I also have a hard time with the idea of censoring it. But I also feel like there is a lot of stuff that doesn't need to be seen. That is generally damaging to th viewers and sometimes creators and subjects.

 

[Master_Craig]

I think the whole... inappropriate material being so readily available, like extreme graphic violence (real or fake) and sexual content is just getting worse too.

On Facebook, there's a video prank where the video is a very quiet video, so people turn up their volume. The video is usually captioned something like "You believe how this fight ended" or "You won't believe what this guy does" or whatever, so it captures the viewer's attention. Then at the end of the clip, porn suddenly appears and is edited to be very loud. Someone right here at work fell for this trick. Awkward noises coming from the kitchen.

What concerns me is that a lot of kids have access to Facebook - either their folks let them, or their folks don't know. Since they've got access, they may end up seeing that kinda shit on Facebook. Facebook also has viral videos that can be graphically violent and real too. I remember I reluctantly (and regretfully) saw a video of a man in the Middle East (I think) who was apparently a thief, getting his fingers cut off with an axe. Terrible.

Like Bretimus_v2 already said, when I was a kid that kinda stuff wasn't exactly readily available in vast quantities. If we ever saw nudity, it would either be at a friend's house in a dirty magazine or on TV on some late night show/movie. If we ever saw violence, it was always fake and in video games and movies. Of course, my parents didn't really allow us to watch violent movies and for good reason. I remember trying to watch Jaws when I was like, seven years old, that film terrified me and gave me nightmares as a kid. Now I find Jaws hilariously bad.