Extremist content. Terrorist content. Then there’s just plain stupid content.
YouTube and Facebook, which this week testified on Capitol Hill about steps they’re taking to detect and remove extremist content on their sites, are also removing videos related to the viral Tide Pod Challenge.
There are enough thrill-seeking teens biting into the laundry detergent pods and recording themselves for posterity that the American Association of Poison Control Centers issued a warning Tuesday.
“A recent trend among teenagers ingesting the packets — and uploading videos to various internet platforms including video-sharing websites, social media, and vlogging platforms— has caused significant concern among poison control centers,” the agency said in a news release.
Poison centers have already handled 39 cases of intentional exposure — 91 percent of them involved ingestion — among 13-to-19-year-olds this year, the agency said. By comparison, that was the same number of cases in 2016, while centers saw 53 such cases all of last year.
“YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit content that’s intended to encourage dangerous activities that have an inherent risk of physical harm,” the company said in statements to some media outlets, including BuzzFeed, Wednesday.
SiliconBeat asked YouTube parent Google how many videos the company has taken down so far, but the company has not responded.
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