Local police and arson investigators from across the country are beginning to speak out on the mischief-themed videos teens are posting on YouTube and other sites and how this may be fueling a rise in the scope and scale of teen pranks. Recipes to create explosives out of common household items are easily accessible online, and some teens find their fifteen seconds of fame through posting videos of their exploits on websites like YouTube. A recent search of YouTube turned up more than 92,600 videos of explosions, 1,910 of them involving homemade devices. Teen violence also seems to be on the rise. Police arrested four Ossining, N.Y., teens in February on charges of first-degree gang assault after one of the youths used a cell-phone camera to photograph him and the others punching, kicking and slashing an 18-year-old in a church parking lot, then posted the graphic footage on YouTube. While there is nothing new about teen pranks, this kind of exposure maybe egging some teens on to do things they wouldn't normally be involved in. As parents we also need to remember that sites like YouTube don't prescreen these videos before they are allowed to be posted. They instead rely on their community of users to point out something offensive. Of course kids aren't likely to point out the pranks or even the violent clips to YouTube editors.
Do you think YouTube needs to be more responsible for what goes up online? Or is it, as they claim, an almost impossible task? Post a comment!
Comments