YouTube says it will hire more than 10,000 people in part to address a disturbing trend among its videos.

The new moderators will try and stop the spread of bizarre, potentially damaging videos across its site. In recent weeks, the site has been increasingly criticised for hosting the posts, which seem aimed to target children but in fact show graphic, extremist and violent content.

The videos often pose as containing footage from TV shows for children, concentrate on well known characters, or actively claim to be showing things aimed at kids. But when they click through, they show videos that might not even be suitable for adults – such as Peppa Pig swinging a chainsaw, or children being forced to pretend to be sick.

'Horrifying' number of men view child sex abuse images online, police say

Many of the videos appear to be generated by bots that pick out heavily searched terms and create new videos – many of which turn out to include extreme violence or other disturbing content. Still others are made by people who have been accused of abusing their children on video for clicks.

The site says it is proud of its success in developing software that can identify extremist videos and those linked to terrorism. Now it will use that same technology to search out other problem videos, like those that target children.

Once it finds those videos, it will stop their uploaders being paid ad money and might even take them off the service.

The extra moderators will help identify the videos when they are posted. That will then be fed into machine learning algorithms to make them able to pick them out themselves.

The goal is to bring the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate its policies to over 10,000 in 2018, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said in one of a pair of blog posts Monday.

11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Show all 11 1 /11 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Play in the background One of the YouTube app’s most frustrating shortcomings is the inability to play music videos in the background or when you’re phone’s locked. There is a way around this, but only on iOS. Open the YouTube website in Safari, play a video and then press your iPhone’s home button. After that, launch the Control Centre by sliding up from the bottom of the screen and tap play. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Loop videos YouTube’s looping option on desktop is really useful, but nowhere near as easy to find as it should be. To loop a video, right-click it while it’s playing and select Loop. Even if you have Autoplay enabled, your video will replay itself as soon as it finishes. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Enable Dark Theme YouTube recently introduced a black-and-red Dark Theme on the desktop, which is much easier on your eyes than the regular version of the site. Enable it by clicking the account symbol, selecting Dark Theme and turning Activate Dark Theme on. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Simplify YouTube Another alternative YouTube user interface is available to access at youtube.com/tv. It’s a really simple, no-frills UI that’s incredibly easy to navigate. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Try out new features You can test upcoming and experimental features early by signing up to YouTube TestTube. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Read When you want to watch a YouTube video but don’t have your headphones and don’t want to disturb anyone around you, turn on Captions. They’re also really handy if you’re trying to watch a video in a foreign language. Transcriptions, meanwhile, break down exactly when certain things take place, so you can skip to the part you want to watch accurately and easily. In the More tab under the video title, launch the dropdown menu and select Transcript. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Use shortcuts You can lean back in your seat and control YouTube videos with your keyboard if you want to. J and L let you rewind and fast-forward 10 seconds, K is pause/play, M is mute/unmute and the 0-9 keys let you jump through various stages of the video, from 0 per cent to 90 per cent. On the app, you can fast forward or rewind 10 seconds by double-tapping the right or left side of a video. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Limit data use If you’re on a limited mobile data plan, there are easy ways to save yourself some money. In Settings on the YouTube app, hit General and enable Limit Mobile Data Usage and disable Autoplay. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Keep things private Unless you make them private, other people can see your Liked videos, your saved playlists and subscriptions. If you want to hide them, go to Settings and Privacy. You can also clear or pause your History. On either desktop or the mobile app, go to History and select Clear All Watch History or Pause Watch History. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Make sharing clearer Sometimes you want to share a video with a friend, but want them to watch a specific part, rather than the whole thing. Instead of sending the timestamp through as a separate message, make the video automatically play from the right place. Just pause it at the right moment, click the Share button, tick the Start At box and copy the URL. 11 YouTube features you didn't know existed Get nerdy Stats for Nerds shows you technical data for YouTube videos, including video format, audio format and bandwidth. On desktop, you can find the info simply by right-clicking the video player and selecting Stats for Nerds. On mobile, you have to enable it first in General Settings. Once that’s done, open a video, hit the menu button in the top-right corner and tap the Stats for Nerds option.

"We need an approach that does a better job determining which channels and videos should be eligible for advertising," she said. "We've heard loud and clear from creators that we have to be more accurate when it comes to reviewing content, so we don't demonetize videos by mistake."

In addition, Wojcicki said the company would take "aggressive action on comments, launching new comment moderation tools and in some cases shutting down comments altogether."

The moves come as advertisers, regulators and advocacy groups express ongoing concern over whether YouTube's policing of its service is sufficient.

YouTube is reviewing its advertising offerings as part of response and it teased that its next efforts could be further changing requirements to share in ad revenue.

YouTube this year updated its recommendation feature to spotlight videos users are likely to find the most gratifying, brushing aside concerns that such an approach can trap people in bubbles of misinformation and like-minded opinions.