Can someone help me explain to DH why this is wrong-YouTuber donating money to his subscribers.

[retainertrainer]

Like many 9 year olds my DS loves YouTube and has a few gaming channels which he’s subscribed to. This morning he was excited to show me a video in which a creator ‘donates’ $1000 to one of his subscribers. Obviously this young lad is thrilled to have been given this amount of money.

I’m pretty appalled by it. Boys of this age are very vulnerable on line and it’s setting an example to hundreds of thousands of children that it’s ok to accept money from strangers on line. Now I’m not suggesting that there’s anything sinister in this particular mans actions but I feel he has a responsibility to his young audience to demonstrate what is and isn’t ok online.

DH thinks I’m being ridiculous. He thinks it was a nice thing for this man to do,doesn’t see a problem with it and hasn’t backed me up infront of DS.

I’m interested to hear other Mum’s views on this. I’ll try and link the video below. Thanks.

I don’t think you should push your thoughts on this particular video but in general keep him aware that not everything you see online is real.

Here’s the video. After googling to find the link it seems that this is a massive trend,something lots of these YouTubers are doing. Scary!

That would set off alarm bells to me. Grooming. He might be absolutely fine but I wouldn't be happy with a stranger giving DD that amount of money.

They're not just giving the money to random people, they donate to streamers who are set up to receive donations on their streams - these are essentially payments for what their viewers deem as good quality content and help to support the streamers either to do it as a job or to improve their equipment. Usually they get a dollar or two, and the whole point of videos such as MrBeast or Unspeakable who donate thousands of dollars is that it's a huge surprise and really helps out these tiny channels who don't get much notice otherwise.

Lemony-thanks for the explanation. I stand by my opinion though, all my DS is getting from the video is that it’s ok for a stranger on the internet to ‘donate’ thousands of dollars to you.

This is similar to a competition. It's not just some random giving a child money.

Surely you can explain the clear difference to your son

Sorry not a competition, but a grant. Just seen lemonys post.

But under what circumstances will your son ever be endangered by someone gifting him $1000 online for nefarious purposes? That's a fairly esoteric lesson for him to learn.

Can you not just describe it as a competition for streamers?

Ok I clearly don’t understand this. If it’s lost on me there must be kids who are finding the message confusing too.

Sadly there has been cases of children being groomed through on line gaming. One very close to home last year.

It just worries me that kids feel they know these YouTubers and see nothing wrong with their subscribers being given all this money. How do they then make the distinction if they’re befriend online,offered gifts,money etc. Obviously I’m looking out for my own child but there’s so many vulnerable kids out there who aren’t taught how to protect themselves.

It just doesn’t sit well with me.

Crooked- the case I mentioned in the above post was 2 teenage boys befriended through Roblox by a paedophile. So there’s a very real circumstance of nefarious purpose for you.

Yes it may be a esoteric lesson but the consequences are pretty high!

They're donating to twitchers though in that video, it's like tipping at a coffee shop.

What’s a twitcher? Where can I learn about this stuff?

Twitch.tv is like YouTube but for steaming gaming, people have tip jars on it that you can donate into and you can pay money to subscribe to their channels, for some it's a fulltime job.

Fair enough., I think I know even less about this than you do, so feel free to ignore me!

I've got an 8 year old I'm trying to keep away from this stuff until I can get to grips with it.

Another example from Roblox is that perverts are simulating sex between their characters during games. I think we all need to educate ourselves and protect our kids and voice our concerns.

However you explain these ‘tips,grants,donations’ it’s ultimately kids excepting money from adults who are strangers to them.

I’m a child of the ‘80’s. I had it drilled into me ‘don’t accept sweets off strangers in the park’. These strangers can now access our kids in their own bedrooms/living rooms and it’s not puppies or sweets they’re being bribed with.

The big YouTubers have a responsibility to their young audience. Clear boundaries should be drawn. If they want to ‘donate’ funds then go ahead and do it but don’t broadcast it to millions of vulnerable naive children who don’t understand the distinction between ‘twitchers’ donation and grooming.

The whole thing stinks.

I disagree, it's parents responsibilities to ban their children from twitch if they don't want them accepting donations and to ban them from YouTube if they don't like the content, rather then the content being banned.

We say don't accept strangers sweets in parks, but slso accepting sweets off strangers at Halloween is the norm. So there are exceptions to these rules that can be explained.

Public donation videos are so helpful as not only do the twitchers get the donation but they get a huge boost in viewership and publicity for their channel its essentially a collaboration between the platforms and the YouTuber and the streamer.
Plus even if the YouTuber didn't film it and donated in private, twitch streams are a available in full on demand and it would be clipped on twitch and put onto YouTube as most big donations are, there would be no way of banning those clips.

Old post but I'm still gonna comment. Twitch has an age gate for a reason. you cannot blame them for the action of a child not listening to that.