A screenshot showing the account was disabled by YouTube A screenshot showing the account was disabled by YouTube

The internet is filled with crazy stuff. So how do you possibly react to a video in which a bunch of Indian kids sitting in a mock classroom are taught to repeat strange and risque statements like “I’m not gay, but $20 is $20” and “Adolf Hitler did nothing wrong”? Shocked, I presume.

Well, after an online petition on change.org garnered more than 22,000 signatures in two days, YouTube disabled the account that posted these videos and barred people from viewing them.

It was 24-year-old Tejaswini Naik, a Mumbai-based assistant director in Bollywood, who created the petition on change.org and exhorted everyone to sign it so that there is enough influence on YouTube to take down the videos. She first saw the videos three weeks back.

“I was aghast and disgusted by the videos. I wanted to see if someone were reacting the way I was. But even on these videos, there were very creepy and perverted comments,” she said via telephone from Pune.

“I have no idea why someone could make such videos. They have some sort of twisted logic,” she added.

Naik said the user, who has uploaded the videos on YouTube, has accounts on other video streaming sites as well. There are also unconfirmed reports that the person making these videos and using them for monetisation purposes on YouTube charges $5 for getting these children say the stuff he wants.

Naik also appeared optimistic that websites like change.org channel public anger to ensure a difference.

“This was my second petition. I think this is a brilliant platform for people like me. Since change.org started, I have signed various petitions. There are a lot of people with a lot of stories and I knew change.org could make my petition work for me,” she said.

Although it is a temporary success, Naik’s petition might not be the end of the road for the user or for such videos. The user, who commands a legion of followers, could upload the video through other accounts. His/her followers could also upload such stuff on YouTube and other video streaming sites. It is in blocking such videos permanently lies the objective of making the internet free from abuse and hate.

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