Just how sick do you have to be to upload hundreds of porn videos, disguised as videos suitable for kids, to the most popular of video sharing sites? And how sick do you have to be to do so under the impression it is either funny or somehow exposing a YouTube shortcoming? I would suggest, in the light of the 'Porn Day' attack which hit YouTube yesterday, very sick indeed.
If this stunt was, indeed, intended to highlight a failing in the YouTube adult content filtering system then the people behind it could have done that without resorting to the tactics they did. They could have been mature and sensible about it, but instead opted to demonstrate more immaturity than can be found at the annual dumbass convention.
You see what happened was a whole load of video clips got uploaded to YouTube which purported to feature Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers or other content which would appeal primarily to children. Many of the video clips apparently did start off with kid's video content, one assumes in order to circumvent any automatic adult filtering process, before proceeding to display sexually explicit acts featuring groups of adults.
Can you imagine being a parent of young kids and having to deal with the fallout of such an experience? Sure, you might argue that it is the responsibility of the parent to ensure that their kids are not viewing inappropriate material. You might argue that it is the responsibility of YouTube. Both are fair points, but in this particular case the responsibility has to fall on the sick dumbass idiots who thought it was funny to post these videos in the first place. Perhaps if they ever become parents themselves they might take a different view on what is acceptable behavior when it could impact upon their own children.
I am not suggesting that we should be following the Chinese lead in attempting to remove all traces of sexual content from the Internet, far from it. Nor am I suggesting that Google is squeaky clean when it comes to dealing with getting it's own house in order when it comes to pornographic content. What I am saying, quite plainly, is that deliberately disguising explicit pornographic videos as content aimed at children is beyond stupid, beyond sick and in my opinion completely criminal. Indeed, if the authorities are prepared to prosecute teenagers who text naked images of themselves to each other via their mobile phones, then I see no reason why they should not prosecute this bunch of dumbass idiots as well. Of course, there is the small matter of catching them, which should not be too difficult as many have been bragging only about their posts in assorted online hangouts.
So who was behind all of this? Well, the consensus of opinion would appear to suggest that the stunt was the work of the 4Chan group. This is the same group that recently managed to hack Time magazine's most influential poll to ensure the founder of the group came out on top. Indeed, someone claiming to be a spokesperson for the group has already claimed responsibility and has told the BBC it was done to expose just how easy it is to post porn to the supposedly family friendly YouTube. Dumbass.
Google has acted quickly to ensure the videos can no longer be viewed and is working hard to remove all traces of them from the system. However, it does admit that it could take a couple of days to delete all the associated thumbnails from video searches for example.
