Fortnite developer, Disney and more companies pull YouTube ads amid horror over child videos

The developer of Fortnite, Disney and other major companies have pulled their advertising from YouTube amid horror over the way videos of children were being used. The development comes after it emerged that videos on the site appeared to be getting watched as part of a phenomenon that saw users share suggestive posts of children and then pass them around. As part of what appears to be a network used by those interested in watching such suggestive videos of children, apparently innocent videos – of very young people dancing or taking part in gymnastics, for instance – would be hit by comments from users linking the posts together. That would then encourage the site's algorithms to suggest more videos, allowing people to pass them around without having explicitly done so. The blogger who discovered the phenomenon described it as a "soft-core pedophilia ring" that appeared to be operating relatively openly, though using hidden methods.