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\nYouTube says it plans to ban comments on most videos featuring young minors amid concerns of pedophiles using the platform to exploit children.
The video sharing platform, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, began disabling comments over the last week on \u201ctens of millions of videos that could be subject to predatory behavior.\u201d
YouTube says in the coming months it\u2019s \u201cbroadening this action to suspend comments on videos featuring young minors and videos featuring older minors that could be at risk of attracting predatory behavior.\u201d
Last week, several major companies began pulling advertisements from the site over concerns of ads being played on videos where child exploitation was occurring in the comments.
In the video comments, posters often note the time of the video in which children are in the most exploitative positions while doing gymnastics, playing Twister or doing yoga.
More: AT&T, Disney, Epic Games drop YouTube ads over concerns of pedophile comments on videos
AT&T and Epic Games, the publisher of massively popular online video game \u201cFortnite,\u201d were among the high-profile companies to pull ads.
Concerns began after an investigation by Wired and videos posted by video blogger Matt Watson showed how the exploitation occurred. Wired found \u201cscores of videos\u201d with children in suggestive positions, and many of the videos had comments numbering in the hundreds of thousands or more.
YouTube responded last week by disabling and removing comments, removing accounts that made inappropriate comments and reporting illegal comments to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
YouTube said Thursday that some channels would be able to keep comments for videos with young minors but that they would need to actively monitor their comments and work directly with YouTube on the issue.
The company also says it will launch a new tool that better classifies comments and can identify and remove predatory behavior.
\u201cWe recognize that comments are a core part of the YouTube experience and how you connect with and grow your audience. At the same time, the important steps we\u2019re sharing today are critical for keeping young people safe,\u201d YouTube said in a statement.
Contributing: Mike Snider, USA TODAY
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