CAC requests takedown of 8 YouTube playlists that sexualise videos of minors
- 275 videos of girls dancing, playing in a swimming pool or doing yoga have been added to playlists with titles such as Hot teens, Culitos ("Little bottoms") and All size tits
- The lists combine videos featuring minors with erotic videos of adults, thereby altering the meaning and initial purpose of the content
- A video of two girls in swimming costumes at a water park, included on playlists such as Panty & bikini, Pool Sluts and Putillas ("Little sluts"), has 10 million views
- CAC Chairperson, Roger Loppacher, considers this matter to be extremely serious and has urged the platform to adopt preventive measures and warns users to be cautious about uploading videos of children to the internet
The Catalan Audiovisual Council (CAC) has asked the video-sharing platform YouTube to remove 8 erotic and / or sexual playlists because they include videos featuring minors.
The videos mainly feature girls, often very young, in everyday situations. However, with titles such as Hot teens, All sizes tits, Culitos ("Little bottoms") and Sexy, the playlists are recontextualised and presented as sexual.
Videos of girls doing innocent activities such as dancing, doing a physical acticity or playing in a swimming pool are listed and offered alongside videos of an erotic or sexual nature starring adult women or fictional content that recreates or suggests paedophile situations or relationships.
One such example is the playlist Hot teens, which compiles videos featuring young and teenage girls dancing in pairs, along with sexual lesbian videos. As the title of the playlist Culitos suggests, the videos feature girls in swimsuits juxtaposed with other erotic videos featuring adult women.
The CAC believes that putting a video that was recorded in a personal or family environment in a playlist of sexual nature aimed at an adult audience entails a change of context that violates YouTube's safety policy under "The importance of context”.
Furthermore, the "Child Safety on YouTube" policy explicitly states that innocent videos featuring minors that are disseminated with the intention of providing sexual pleasure are not allowed.
CAC Chairperson, Roger Loppacher, considers such sexualisation of videos featuring minors to be extremely serious and has asked the platform "to remove the playlists lists in question and take appropriate measures to avoid this practice”.
Roger Loppacher also recommended users to be cautious about uploading videos featuring children. “It is worth stressing the fact that as soon as you upload personal or family content to a platform, you lose control of it and may have images of your children being used on playlists of a sexual nature without your knowledge," he explained.
275 videos featuring minors on erotic playlists
The CAC report identified 8 playlists with this juxtaposition of content. In total, the 8 lists include 415 videos, of which 275 feature minors. The videos that the CAC analysed (which did not include professional music videos) have 488 million views in total.
Furthermore, the CAC found that many videos featuring minors that are included in one or more sexually-themed playlists go viral. For example, one of the videos analysed, which has over 11 million views and features girls in swimsuits playing in a swimming pool, appears in 10 playlists with titles such as Pool Sluts, Putillas ("Little sluts"), Sexy vids2 and omg! Booty which, in addition, include a different proportion of erotic content.
13 internet content reports
The CAC extended its action to the internet in 2015 and has since published 13 reports on child pornography, pro-anorexia and bulimia sites, violence against women, content that incites suicide, paedophilia and homophobia, and fake news. Requests from the CAC have led to providers taking action on 100 contents.
The latest report, which also targets YouTube, has called for the removal of 12 video tutorials on how to access the contents of a partner's mobile phone without their knowledge, with 22.9 million views. The platform removed 11 of the 12 videos reported.
Analysis of online content featuring minors that is recontextualised as sexual
