THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF YOUTUBE

Platforms like YouTube have been designed to entertain, amuse and inform, but they’ve also raised some troubling questions about the unregulated and damaging content we are consuming all day, every day, writes AMANDA CASSIDY.

Amanda Cassidy on why kids – and their parents – need to be wary of online platforms

All disruptive technologies come with consequences, and the internet is no exception. Sometimes it powers the powerless, like in the latest Netflix series Diagnosis. Inspired by The New York Times Magazine column by Dr Lisa Sanders, it crowdsources potential solutions for hard-to-diagnose patients by creating videos detailing symptoms and helping them to go viral. Sometimes it has even led to a definitive diagnosis for the patient.

It’s a refreshing representation of how some platforms can strengthen community to benefit the most vulnerable. But other online platforms have emerged that are having the opposite effect.

Cork-born Doreen has a 14-year-old-son. She says she was shocked when she decided to keep a closer eye on his online interactions with friends. “Their group messages were shockingly vulgar – they were degrading girls, joking about those with disabilities and sharing racist memes. I spoke to my son about why he was allowing himself to be part of this, and he said it was considered controversial humour and wasn’t hurting anyone.”

The more Doreen looked into it, the more she realised that these attitudes among young people were more common that she’d thought. She discovered much of it was coming from YouTube. “If you are constantly receiving and sharing videos of people kicking the hell out of each other, or pranks involving those with disabilities, it slowly starts to become normalised. We talk about those who are being radicalised online; well, this is a form of it, in plain sight.”