Evidence that the internet can be a weird and creepy place surfaces every once in a while. In November, Tejaswini Naik, a film industry professional in Mumbai made a gruesome discovery on YouTube. She found several videos featuring children being made to speak lines that are sexual, racist and hateful.
As she noted in her Change.org petition to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki:
There was more to come.
Naik says she noticed other lines that had “worse content with filthy words that I won’t repeat. These lines are blatantly racist, sexual and filled with hatred. And the videos feature 8 to 10-year-old Indian children saying these lines.”
According to Naik, a self-proclaimed teacher was making money by getting the children utter these lines and uploading the videos, all for 5 dollars each.
Her petition began gathering steam and within weeks she had crossed 50,000 signatures. Even better, YouTube took down most of the offending videos. In a petition update, she declared:
Naik says she will be able to declare victory once all the videos are taken down. That would be a massive leap for her campaign. But it would be only a small (albeit crucial) step in the overall fight against the abuse of children online.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)