YouTube Hit by 'Porn Day'
In case you missed it, Wednesday, May 20 was "Porn Day." Though of course, every day is porn day in the adult business. But two mainstream websites "celebrated" by hitting YouTube with a barrage of porn clips.
Article By Edward Duncan, AVN Business
A group of users on image-based message board 4chan and multi-media content site eBaum's World staged the "porn day" prank and YouTube has been cleaning up the mess, though it seems some images still come up in searches, despite the actual videos being yanked.
The uploads actually began on Tuesday afternoon, according to ArsTechnica. Many of the uploaded clips appeared legitimate at first, starting with non-porn content, such as news or an interview.
"It may take some time for video search results and thumbnail images to disappear from the site," Google spokesperson Scott Rubin told Ars, adding the takedowns would be finished within a couple of days.
The adult clips were uploaded without any warnings on them that they contained adult content, which is certainly not funny in the least to parents whose children might frequent YouTube as well as those simply not interested in porn viewing at all and no desire to stumble upon it.
Additionally, because the thumbnails in searches were still appearing as of Thursday morning, it was a cause for concern among parents in particular, considering some of the search tags included kid topics or heroes like the Jonas Brothers.
Another problem is such a reckless stunt can only reflect poorly on adult companies and the industry, which could be blamed, though the prank came out of the mainstream. This could undermine responsible industry efforts in conjunction with child-protection groups such as the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection.
“It is upsetting when someone from outside the industry thinks it’s funny to expose everyone to content that is inappropriate for minors and to others who chose not to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was done by an anti-adult entertainment group just to discredit the adult industry which only produces content for and by adults,” ASACP CEO Joan Irvine told AVN.com. “Many of the industry leaders support ASACP’s online child protection efforts as members and sponsors and over 2.2 million sites are labeled with the Restricted to Adults – RTA Website Label in order to help parents who use parental control systems.”
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Matthew Conaster
Matt Conaster
I'm the Associate Webmaster for this website. I currently at Northwestern working on my post grad work. Formerly I live in Atlanta, Georgia but my hometown is Charlotte, North Carolina View all posts by Matthew Conaster
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Let’s see. I am supposed to have a fit because Google/You Tube is in a tizzy over being pranked, or I am supposed to feel for parents in angst because some of them have to get off of their butts and take an active interest in their kids, some of whom load the tykes into the soccer mobile and shove the little darlings off onto the school, in certain cases, an hour or more before it opens so those same parents can toddle on off to work unimpeded or on a golfing or swimming outing or shopping outing with friends while someone else takes care of those little tax deductions?
I don’t like the unnecessary accessing of adult content that the kids could have been exposed to, but I don’t like Google trying to claim “an outrage” that smacks more of a PR stunt than an incident of sabatoge.
What they do get is a big yawn.
i am NOT amused by this prank.
Depok who cares?
You didn’t attribute your remark about lack of amusement to Queen Victoria who coined the phrase.