A Mom Found Suicide Instructions in a YouTube Video Designed for Kids
As a mom I do everything in my power to protect my kids.
I know who their friends are, where they are going and I even monitor their online activity to ensure it’s kid-friendly content.
But here’s the thing – it’s not enough and here is why…
A mom found suicide instructions in a YouTube video designed for kids.
I’m angry.
It’s scary.
It’s sickening.
And it’s awful to think that some awful human being would target young children like that teaching them to do something horrific to themselves but here we are, having to worry about that.
As I said, I monitor my kids online activity but never would I have thought I’d have to watch every single episode of a Kids YouTube channel to make sure there isn’t any subliminal messages in it.
I thought that once I checked out the YouTube, the comments and some content, it was deemed safe and my kids could enjoy watching that channel on their own.
READ: 20 kid-safe YouTube Channels
But boy, was I wrong!
Dr. Free Hess, a pediatrician and mom, made a horrifying discovery recently that will send chills down the spine of any parent.
She found instructions for committing suicide nestled in the middle of what appears to be a kid-friendly YouTube video.
The suicide instructions are sandwiched between clips from the popular Nintendo game Splatoon and delivered by a man speaking in front of what appears to be a green screen — an apparent effort to have him blend in with the rest of the animated video.
And this was not a few months ago, or even weeks ago.
She literally found this on 2/24/19 – yes, 2 days ago!
The awful message says:
“Remember kids, sideways for attention, longways for results,” the man says, miming cutting motions on his forearm. “End it.”Â
The man featured is YouTuber Filthy Frank, who has over 6.2 million subscribers and calls himself “the embodiment of everything a person should not be,” although there is no evidence that Frank, whose real name is George Miller, was involved in creating the doctored video.
In fact, many have jumped to his aid to point out that while his YouTube channel was intended for adults, someone took an old clip of his and fudged it to make it look like this.
Also, many say he hasn’t uploaded or done anything with his channel in over a year and has since retired.
And the thing is, it doesn’t really matter who did it. It’s that is has been done.
Now, I have to warn you, this is extremely disturbing but you have know what it is to be able to know what to look for in your kids’ YouTube videos.
This is happening NOW this is something you, and all parents need to be aware of, but I wasn’t.
READ: How to Monitor Your Childs Phone without Invading Their Privacy
As a mom I am already terrified of the world and allowing my kids into it. I may seem overprotective but seeing something like this surface makes me realize, I am not crazy.
In fact, just the other day, my 8-year-old son came home telling me how a friend in his class has been talking about committing suicide like it was some game.
I knew the kid he was talking about because we had run into issues with him before talking inappropriately online with my son (which caused me to tell my son to block him).
So, as soon as I heard this was happening, I not only informed the school of this incident, I also sat down and talked to my son about what that meant.
Kids have to know.
They need to know that suicide is not a game, it’s a gamble with their life and one that is NOT ever worth playing.
I am sickened. I am sad. I am angry.
This hasn’t been the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last.
But most importantly, we have to come together as parents more now than ever to bring awareness of this happening. We have to help protect our children from the dangers lurking even in plain sight.
So, please share this information with everyone you know and go and have that very hard talk with your kids. It could very well save their life.
Ok, I’m a grandma and only once checked out YouTube kids with my granddaughter. On this show I realized the shows are adults or teens or strangers chikdren that we know nothing about pretending with fake voices doing their own made up stories. A parent would have to watch every moment with the child to really know what messages and examples are being shown. What I’m trying to say is no one is doing back ground checks, on the type of people or the content. Stranger danger. Here kids learn life lessons from random strangers playing pretend with barbies or puppets to grab the kids attention.
My best friend’s great niece committed suicide by hanging herself from her bunk bed. She was bullied at school, and felt unloved at home. She was only 9 years old! My granddaughter just turned 9!
This breaks my heart. It seems that kids nowadays don’t have safe relationships with mom, or dad; nor anyone.