Bill O’Reilly recently aired a segment about the vast amount of “softcore” pornography on YouTube. The segment features research from the report BlueTube written by cultureandmedia.com.

Though Bill is catching some heat, predictably, for airing small portions of some of the videos to prove his point, we also think it’s important that parents know what is on YouTube, and not be lulled to sleep by their terms of use or the fact that the site is owned and operated by google, the world’s most powerful Internet company.

Some statistics referenced in the BlueTube study are fairly alarming, even for those who know that some videos on YouTube are what many would call pornographic:

• A search of the word “pornâ€? returned more than 330,000 results
• The top videos billing themselves as pornography have been viewed 438 million times
• Many of the videos on YouTube are just advertisements and come-ons to actual porn sites

YouTube is a wonderful thing, but the truth is, like many things on the Internet that are mostly fun and entertaining, it has a dark side. And the dark side is that many people skirt YouTube’s terms of service and use the site to promote and advertise pornography, which is why our developers designed Safe Eyes to not block YouTube, but filter the videos within YouTube that are pornographic or obscene.

This is a common pitfall of the user-driven web. Since content creation has become a largely user-driven activity, sites that open themselves up to their users, such as YouTube, Myspace, and various forums, have to be constantly policed for inappropriate content, with the moderators hopelessly outnumbered by the users. Just another reason that parents who are concerned about what their kids see online need to keep themselves informed and talk to their kids about what is and is not appropriate for entertainment.

Filed under: Internet Safety News