A DIY air rifle video showed up on YouTube Kids, and although it was brought to the attention of the YouTube Kids team and has already been removed, it wasn’t before it had been viewed a few million times, presumably all by children, which the app caters to. The video has stirred up controversy and concern in a time following recent tragic events involving gun violence.
The prospect of being able to construct an air rifle using everyday items that can be found at the store is seemingly causing much outburst due to the video showing how to build the pellet-shooting gun step by step, which is made from a series of what looks like plastic piping and a plastic soda bottle, and comes with the title “Homemade Air Gun – How To Make EASY Air Gun.” Other than the video’s content itself, it was also reported that it contained no measure of safety instructions to ensure that anyone who saw and tried this method of building the air rifle was able to do so in a safe manner.
The discovery of the video is also in the wake of loads of questionable content that had been found on the regular YouTube app, as well as other videos which were viewable through YouTube Kids that were targeted at children and were deemed inappropriate for younger users, both of which sparked YouTube to change policies in what sorts of content are allowed on the platform. Discovery of the air rifle video prompted searches for other non-kid-friendly content and it reportedly didn’t take too long to find other videos that were referred to as unsuitable for kids, though they were easily accessible by kids through the app with some of them being on the same channel as the DIY video. YouTube Kids was updated around the beginning of November in 2017 with new parental controls aimed at giving parents more ways to manage what their kids are watching, but those controls obviously don’t stop inappropriate videos from being uploaded to the platform and becoming visible.