Momo - To delete YouTube for all

[carrywatermelons]

DC watch a mix of documentaries, gaming and family challenge videos on YouTube. The eldest uses it to practice singing between lessons.
Momo has terrified me, my youngest DC8 is very sensitive so I really want to try and protect them.
Eldest DC has known about momo for a while and is a bit hardier but feel like it wouldn't be fair to 'allow' one and not the other.
What have you decided to do about momo?

I read there was another video where a man is showing people how to cut their wrists. It comes up part way through a regular looking video.

I also watched a video on FB that explained how auto play can take you to these videos unknowingly using similar keywords in the video title.

After watching a regular child’s video 7 auto play videos later was a video of Micky Mouse masturbating.

The internet can be a fantastic resource but also terrifying in equal measure.

It was chain letters when I was a kid. It's worth warning your kids about it even if it is hugely exaggerated.

I don't really know if Momo is a problem on YT or not, but my eldest child is four and a half and I see no reason for him to be watching YouTube at all.

He can watch Netflix and children's TV channels.

You Tube is not pre moderated, so aside from Momo there are all sorts of risks. Even You Tube Kids isn't safe, but I'm aware they have recently increased their parenting controls. I think you can tighten up settings so kids only see subscribed to channels etc. If you know a few, regularly used channels are safe, you could set up YTK to only access these.

support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/6172308?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=7555881

Personally, it's a minefield and I haven't got the time or inclination to be set up You Kids so it's sufficiently safe for my child. My 5yo DS has never had access to You Tube, it's all CBeebies/Netflix here. Watching videos on YT at their age is a massive time waster and a lot of the content is totally crap.

Is it possible to remove the You Tube app which came pre-programmed into a smart tv, and replace it with You Tube Kids?

This has come up on one of my local FB groups tonight too - same thing, it's popping up in the middle of things like Peppa Pig on You Tube.

I googled it but could only find info from several months ago, relating to Whatsapp and a Brazilian (iirc) girl who killed herself because of it? Plus a few more later.

The puppet face is hideous and brought back memories of the thing from The Hole. Way worse than any Jim Henson puppet, even in the Dark Crystal.

I haven't found a youtube video with it on yet (Yes I've been looking to try and verify it!) BUT I was looking for entirely separate reasons for a photo of Edmond Elephant (from Peppa Pig) and found an adulterated video on YouTube of Edmond's Birthday party, where some fool has added in hand grenades, machine guns and other such "lovely" bits and pieces for no good reason I could see.
It was called MLG? The fool said it was their first attempt at MLG. SO my point is that I guess there are people out there who will happily adulterate children's videos on YouTube to include other things, without it involving someone paying for a pop-up advert.

The issue with this whole ‘it pops up as an advert half way through YouTube videos’ thing, is that no amount of parental supervision is going to be able to screen that out if that’s the case (which it isn’t, see @trancepants).

As advert inserts don’t come up in the same order each time, no amount of pre-screening can ensure children are protected from this... if this is what’s happening.

I guess supervised viewing is better in that you’ll both see this Moma character, if she’s on YouTube. But that’s all you can do.

The way adverts are put up on webpages is different and so it’s much more likely a child has clicked through to a Momo scare site via an advert at the side ( top/ bottom etc) of Roblox. But that child would have had to have clicked on the advert to have activated it, so that needs investigating differently from these alleged inserts that are sprung on the viewer without any interaction or engagement from them.

Personally I’m happy to support any push back against the new way YouTube is inserting ads every few minutes throughout all the content.

It’s awful and makes it much less child safe due to the ad content that you now cannot anticipate or screen out. In fact... now I think about it, I wonder if Momo is being fuelled by angry momas :) (sorry bad joke)

I have seen lots of people saying they have deleted YouTube for their kids as a result of these posts about momo. Personally I trust my kids to watch responsibly or wouldn’t let them have it anyway so have told them about it and that it is probably just rumours but to let me know if they see anything unusual if they use YouTube. Even the youngest at 6 understands when I explained to him that things like this are not real and if it says not to tell or something bad will happen this is not the case and that he can speak to me or his dad about anything

IT POPS UP INTHE MIDDLE OF VIDEOS.... its done deliberately to make it difficult to supervise, by the time youve seen it your child had aswell.

Is it possible to remove the You Tube app which came pre-programmed into a smart tv, and replace it with You Tube Kids?

I’ve actually just fiddled about with the tv and discovered I could “lock” YouTube so thatit is only accessible with a pin code. Thanks for this thread, whether the Momo threat is real or not, I feel very satisfied to have found this.

Even the youngest at 6 understands when I explained to him that things like this are not real and if it says not to tell or something bad will happen this is not the case

That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be very disturbed by it if he saw it though.

I have spoken to my nine and six year old in an age appropriate manner and told them if anything ever comes up to tell me and turn it off.

They hadn't ever seen it. The 6 year old said the kids at school two years older had been talking about it. 9 year old had never heard of it. Neither have phones so not concerned about the WhatsApp part of it and have explained to them momo is actually not real and is a sculpture in Japan.

@trancepants I have and have from a young age had automatonophobia so it's not stupid - wind your neck in.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/17457229.edinburgh-mum-warns-parents-over-momo-suicide-game/

I think, for the most part, this has been massively 'over-hyped'.

I think the VAST majority of the scaremongering is coming from other children in the playground (and, from a parent's perspective, from the press).

I think the biggest positive though is that it brings up a good conversation about internet and social-media safety.

In my day it was all about saying "Bloody Mary" in the mirror at midnight...this spread through my school like wildfire. Incredibly nobody died from it (unless you believe what Chris from Year 6 said!)

My little boy would be fucking terrified if he saw that puppet though and no amount of ‘don’t do what it says’ or ‘it’s just a sculpture from Japan’ would make any difference to that.

Agreed.

I had my 5 year old crying about some Fox/ghost thing that you're not supposed to tell adults about but she comes to get you at night a few months ago.

This too would be nightmare inducing and Chinese whispers will only make it worse.

Will discuss in age appropriate way with DD.

Laurie thats your child though so that's why you make a decision on how you want to deal with this in a way that suits your son. And others can do the same. Both of mine have seen it and aren't fussed at all and we have shown them the actual momo sculpture in a Japan museum that's half bird to show it's not real.

If they do see it again now they know to turn it off and tell me.

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who has actually seen this YT "pop up" and not just heard it from a friend of a friend or saw a shared post on Facebook. I find it very hard to believe it's an advert on YT. They cost money. If its a video that has something normal at the beginning and then this Momo thing in the middle then why has nobody (on her or the FB posts I've seen shared) shared a link to the video?

There is some weird shit on YT, I've fallen down the rabbit hole more than once but I'm not understanding the reference to it "popping up" in the middle of a normal video.

@FallenSky

I agree, it sounds a bit like Chinese whispers with plenty of supposed 'anecdotal' evidence.

So, someone is paying for a YouTube advert with momo in it, and it is being embedded within kids videos?
So who is paying for this advert and what for? They are expensive.
And you tubers who make content for kids are allowing this advert to pop up in their videos without complaining to YouTube, even though this would cost them subscribers and therefore money?

Does nobody know how YouTube works?

How could it pop up randomly on youtube? This makes no sense. Sounds like silly rumours spread by people who don't understand how youtube works.

Ha, xpost

It’s not an ad on there. It appears within the video apparently.

If it appears within a video, why does nobody ever link to the video in question?