Incident 229: Content Using Bestiality Thumbnails Allegedly Evaded YouTube’s Thumbnail Monitoring System

Description: YouTube’s thumbnail monitoring system was allegedly evaded by content farms such as ones in Cambodia who spike viewership and generate ad revenue using bestiality-themed thumbnails.

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Alleged: YouTube developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed YouTube users and YouTube content creators.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
229
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2018-04-23
Editors
Khoa Lam
YouTube channels are using bestiality thumbnails as clickbait
theverge.com · 2018

Yet another issue artificial intelligence is ill-equipped to handle.

YouTube videos with thumbnails depicting women engaging in various sexual acts with horses and dogs populate top search results on the video platform, according to a repor…

YouTube Hosted Graphic Images Of Bestiality For Months
buzzfeednews.com · 2018

There is bestiality on YouTube, and it's surprisingly easy to find. It's also surprisingly prevalent, but not in videos — in video thumbnails, some of which have racked up millions of views.

Search YouTube for "girl and her horse" and the p…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.