Edited by Azizi Powell
On February 28, 2019 YouTube enacted a ban on comments for most YouTube videos that feature children under the age of 13 years.
This pancocojams post presents information about that YouTube policy and includes my brief comment about that policy.
This post also introduces my archived lists of pancocojams posts that include a small amount of comments that I happened to have saved from those now deleted discussion threads.
This post is presented for folkloric and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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YOUTUBE'S NEW POLICY OF TURNING OFF THE COMMENT FEATURE FOR MOST OF ITS CHILDREN'S VIDEOS
[These article excerpt are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.}
Article #1:
From https://tech.co/news/youtube-blocks-comments-videos-children-2019-02
YouTube Blocks Comments on Videos Featuring Children
February 28, 2019
"YouTube has just announced that it is disabling the commenting function for videos on its platform that feature children under the age of 13.
The decision follows reports that the massive video sharing site has failed to protect children's safety online by allowing and promoting predatory comments on children's videos.
[...]
YouTube's new stance is a sweeping, across-the-board approach. While easier than attempting to hire thousands of content editors to manually check videos, this approach will also wipe out any healthy commenting communities that might have revolved around YouTube channels not major enough to receive an exemption from the comment ban."...
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Article #2:
From https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/28/18244954/youtube-comments-minor-children-exploitation-monetization-creators
YouTube is disabling comments on almost all videos featuring children
Only a few select channels will have comment sections enabled
By Julia Alexander, Feb 28, 2019
"YouTube will no longer allow the majority of channels featuring kids to include comment sections following a controversy over predatory comments being posted on videos of children.
YouTube will temporarily remove comments from videos that feature minors in the coming months. Only a select few channels with children will be allowed to include a comment sections, but even that comes with a caveat: they’ll be required to monitor their comments for safety.
“These channels will be required to actively moderate their comments, beyond just using our moderation tools, and demonstrate a low risk of predatory behavior,” YouTube wrote in a blog post.
[...]
MAJOR COMPANIES PULLED THEIR ADS OVER THE PREDATORY COMMENTS
YouTube also says it’s launched a better algorithm to let it automatically “identify and remove predatory comments.” The classifier is “more sweeping in scope,” according to the blog post, and will catch up to twice as many predatory comments from individuals.
YouTube’s decision to remove comments comes in the wake of major corporations like Disney, Nestlé, AT&T and Fortnite maker Epic Games pausing ad spending after discovering their ads were playing on videos that had predatory comments on them. It’s unclear if those companies have reactivated their spending, or if they plan to at this time.
As part of an initial response, YouTube said last week that it had deleted tens of millions of comments and removed more than 400 channels associated with writing predatory comments on videos staring minors.
YouTube also sought to clear up confusion around how these changes will impact creators’ ability to run ads. In its blog post, YouTube says none of this will affect creators’ monetization. That was a concern among YouTubers as the controversy arose, along with comments being weaponized against creators.
A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge that although the company understands comment sections are important to creators as way of measuring engagement, “we also know that this is the right thing to do to protect the YouTube community.”
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE ABOUT THIS POLICY
I've previously written pancocojams posts expressing my concern about the safety of children posting on YouTube discussion threads*, and I understand the reasons why YouTube turned off the comment feature for most children's videos. That said, as a (self-identified) community folklorist, I deeply regret the lost of many of these now deleted comments on videos about children's recreational rhymes.
Those mostly deleted discussion threads for YouTube's hand clap rhyme videos were a treasure trove for people like me who are interested in collecting old and new hand clap rhyme examples. I particularly liked the usually rare occasions when commenters shared their demographic information (such as what age/s they are or were when they performed that rhyme, how they perform/ed it, and what city & state they live in or what nation they live in if they lived outside of the United States- but NOT their address, instagram account, or school name). That information was (and still is) helpful for comparing how rhymes stay the same or how they change depending on which population (race, ethnic group, gender, ages) chants them and where those people live.
Some comments in those deleted discussion threads were also interesting for socio-cultural reasons in that the rhymes (and the way the comments are written, and their content) can provide insights into how those who chanted/chant those examples view/ed themselves and others, and what children thought about adults and about "being an adult". (For instance: examples of "I Like Coffee, I Like Tea" that include racial references and examples of "life milestones" rhymes such as "When Susie Was A Baby" which chant about a different characteristic for each progressive stage of life such as "baby", "teen", "mom", "grandma", "angel".)
In addition to documenting how certain children's hand clap rhymes were changing in relatively short periods of time, those YouTube discussion threads also documented how children and other commenters thought about those changes, and about the idea that there could be multiple versions of the "same" rhyme and rhymes with different words or rhymes that were played differently than the way they learned it weren't "wrong". Such openness to differences could be transferred to many other aspects of people's lives.
Most examples of hand clap rhymes and other children's recreational rhymes that were included in these now deleted YouTube discussion threads are rarely found in published books of children's rhymes, although there are other online sites that can be gleaned for those type of rhyme examples (such as pancocojams).
And there are still open discussion threads in YouTube videos of hand clap rhymes and other "children's" recreational rhymes, singing games, and cheers. Most of those discussion threads feature adults performing those "children's" recreational activities. However, just last night while researching this post, I happened upon a YouTube video of two Black children performing hand clap rhymes and I was surprised to find that that video's comment section was still opened. Big name channels such as PBS and Disney still have their comments open. However, that publisher wasn't a "big name", and given the profanity, sexualized content, and the personalized way that commenters wrote on that discussion thread (sharing their school name and talking about knowing someone by name), those comments -if not the entire comment thread- should certainly have been deleted.
Since 2000, I've been surfing YouTube and saving examples of YouTube comments from children's rhyme videos to share on my now deleted cocojams cultural website and on this pancocojams blog and my other (relatively inactive) cocojams2 blog that focuses on children's rhymes, cheers, and game songs. But, I didn't think that the time would come that those YouTube comment threads would eventually be entirely deleted. :(
I've compiled a hyperlinked lists of pancocojams posts that include a small number of comments from those now deleted YouTube discussion threads from videos about hand clap rhymes that featured children under 13 years old. Here's the link for that post: https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/11/pancocojams-posts-that-include-comments.html.
I hasten to emphasize that the pancocojams posts whose hyperlinks are given below aren't a complete list of pancocojams posts about children's hand clap rhymes that were published during that time period.
There are many other pancocojams posts about hand clap rhymes that don't have any comments from YouTube discussion threads. Some of these posts present examples from other sources besides YouTube (such as my direct collecting; from books or records, and/or from my "gleaning" rhyme examples from other internet sources, including my no longer active cocojams cultural website which was online from 2000-2014 and received a lot of material from children, teens, and adults).
In addition, there are some pancocojams posts that showcase YouTube hand clap rhyme videos that were published by older teens or adults. The comment sections for those videos are still open. Therefore, links to those pancocojams posts aren't included in this series.
Other pancocojams posts on children's hand clap rhymes that I have published feature one or more embedded YouTube video/s or sound files of hand clap rhyme/s along with my (or someone else's) transcription of that rhyme/s and some comments about that rhyme/s. Links to those posts aren't included in this particular pancocojams series.
In addition, most of the pancocojams posts that provide information and speculation about possible sources for verses of hand clap rhymes, and most of the pancocojams posts that provide my textual analysis of these rhymes aren't included in this particular list.
Also, there are many other pancocojams posts about other types of children's recreational rhymes (and/or children's cheers) besides hand clap rhymes.
The archived list of certain pancocojams posts is provided for the general public, educators, and folklorists who may be interested in documenting and studying these children's recreational rhymes.
Click the "children's rhymes" or "African American children's rhymes and cheers" tags to find a complete listing of pancocojams posts on those subjects. Some posts can be identified by both of these tags. Or you can use Google to search for pancocojams posts on specific children's recreational rhymes. A lot of times that's what I do :o)
*Here are links to two pancocojams posts that I published in which I shared my concerns about children publishing comments on YouTube, and/or the ways that some children publish comments on YouTube:
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2015/11/children-posting-on-youtube-discussion.html
"Children Posting On YouTube Discussion Threads- A Recipe For Danger"
and
https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/06/facebooking-youtube-video-comment.html
"Facebooking YouTube Video Comment Threads: Kids Commenting On Starrkeisha Videos' Discussion Threads."
By "facebooking" YouTube comment threads I mean treating YouTube discussion threads as if it is a social media platform in which people "get personal" with people who are either family and friends, or people who they want to be family and friends, or people who they are upset or angry with as if they were interacting face to face.
These two pancocojams posts address part of the reasons why YouTube instituted this "no comment" policy for mot videos that feature children under 13 years.
As I've mentioned earlier, I regret losing access to many of the comments on those YouTube discussion threads, but there are still YouTube discussion threads for videos on hand clap rhymes (and other videos) that people can read to glean new examples of rhymes and read comments about rhymes from past decades. Those YouTube videos (such as this one that I just found today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zEcsIfe6lU&t=10s " 90’s hands games !!!!!" published by Geneas, Nov 4, 2018 feature adults performing hand claps. Some of the comments on that video's discussion thread are from self-identified children. And some of the comments that they could read (or comments that they themselves post) include profanity, sexualized references, violence, and other Not Suitable For Kids content.
Since children are creative, it will be interesting to see what they do with their desire to comment about hand clap rhymes since YouTube has disallowed comments on most children's videos. Of course, they could always comment about rhymes on specific pancocojams discussion threads which I hasten to say are moderated so Not Suitable For Kids content isn't allowed.
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