In an effort to crack down on its massive problem of disturbing and exploitative family-friendly video content, YouTube has purged hundreds of thousands of videos in the last week. The company has also instituted a policy of disabling the commenting feature on any video suspected of having predatory comments (that is, those that are sexual in nature, appear to be intended to convince children in videos to act in a sexualized manner, or attempt to get the children to engage with them privately on a separate platform). But the platform's steps to rid the site of exploitative content often fail to stop a crucial party: the predatory commenters themselves.

A BuzzFeed News review of YouTube videos with exploitative and predatory comments directed at children shows that, while the company is quick to flag the videos themselves, in at least 13 instances, the commenters themselves were never suspended for their posts.

Of the 13 videos, 11 were deleted entirely shortly after they were reported to YouTube, and two had comments disabled. But the accounts of users engaging in potentially predatory behavior — including sexualized compliments, making potentially problematic requests (such as asking children to disrobe or give themselves wedgies), or asking for or providing their numbers or social media accounts to get in contact — did not appear to be deleted.



The videos — which were provided to BuzzFeed News and then reported by a member of YouTube's Trusted Flagger Program — were mostly videos posted by children's accounts. While few, if any, of the videos were likely made for the purpose of exploiting children, all depict young kids in situations that elicited predatory or explicit comments. Many of the videos were of the popular "challenge" genre (similar to the popular Ice Bucket Challenge), where YouTubers compete in any number of competitions or scenarios for fans. The flagged videos reviewed by BuzzFeed News included children in bathing suits, in the shower, or engaging in actions that might be targeted by those with fetishes, such as the "hold it in" or "try not to pee" challenges.

BuzzFeed News provided four such examples to YouTube on Thursday morning for guidance as to why the accounts were still active. Shortly after, YouTube told BuzzFeed News the accounts "seem to be old as our teams just looked for some of the accounts/videos and some actions have been taken." However, none of the predatory commenters' accounts had been taken down. Roughly one hour later, the four accounts were taken down. When asked for comment, a YouTube spokesperson provided BuzzFeed News with the following statement:

"Last week we took action to shut comments down on tens of thousands of videos at scale. Our teams are now methodically reviewing the accounts behind the inappropriate and unacceptable comments, terminating these accounts, and reporting illegal predatory behavior to NCMEC. We have shut down hundreds of predatory accounts in the last week and we continue to work to terminate more."

Below are some examples of videos that YouTube deleted or disabled comments on — but didn't disable the predatory commenters' accounts.