Child YouTubers exposed to cyberbullying

By Kim Jae-heun

The market for children's content on online platforms like YouTube has grown explosively with the flourishing trend of “one-person” media here. In this media climate, children see becoming a YouTuber as one of their dream jobs, after doctors and lawyers, the other traditionally popular aspirations.

However, there are no protective measures or regulations to protect young YouTubers against cyberbullying or abusive language by their online peers, or even adult viewers.

A young YouTuber with the alias Seyoung burst into tears on air recently, begging the audience to stop cursing his parents.

A middle school student, who has garnered 50,000 subscribers on the platform, received attention for his “mukbang,” an eating show online where he eats a massive amount of food.

However, people began to leave abusive comments on his videos, cursing him and his parents, accusing him of only pretending to eat a lot. Many comments saying he was deceiving viewers were posted in real time during his livestream on Jan. 9.

Some of the comments targeted the young YouTuber's parents, with one saying, “He is too skinny and he looks sick. Why are his parents allowing him to do this?”

Shocked at the comments, Seyoung sobbed, “It is okay for you to mock me, but please don't speak badly about my parents.”

Like Seyoung, other young YouTubers are exposed to cyberbullying and audience criticism as much as adult YouTubers are. More vulnerable to harsh reactions than adults, some of them shut down their channels following continuous malicious comments.

But there have been no government-level countermeasures yet. The Ministry of the Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) has been cooperating with the Korea Communications Commission to publish guidelines for online platform businesses and content producers for healthy content, but this does not include preventive measures specifically for underage YouTubers.

“It is certainly a problem if young YouTubers are exposed to an environment where they can be targets of violent language and malicious comments,” a ministry official told The Korea Times. “However, we don't know how bad the situation is and we can't just put preventive measures on them because it could mean regulating YouTubers.”

The official added, “We are working on guidelines to avoid suggestive and violent content on one-person media platforms and we can consider providing recommendations for parents' attention on their children's broadcasting.”

Koo Jung-woo, a professor at the Social Science Department of Sungkyunkwan University, said cyberbullying can infringe on personal rights and dignity of children and teenagers.

“As more students are engaging in “one-person” media platforms like YouTube, a proper education on online ethics should be taught and students should learn how to protect themselves from cyberbullying,” Koo said.