YouTube’s recommendations send violent and graphic gun videos to 9-year-olds, study finds

WASHINGTON — When researchers at a nonprofit that studies social media wanted to understand the connection between YouTube videos and gun violence, they set up accounts on the platform that mimicked the behavior of typical boys living in the U.S. The account that clicked on YouTube’s suggestions was soon flooded with graphic videos about school shootings, tactical gun training videos and how-to instructions on making firearms fully automatic. It’s the algorithms.” The accounts that followed YouTube’s suggested videos received 382 different firearms-related videos in a single month, or about 12 per day. One of the videos recommended for the accounts was titled “How a Switch Works on a Glock.” YouTube later removed the video after determining it violated its rules; an almost identical video popped up two weeks later with a slightly altered name; that video remains available. In posts on YouTube, the shooter behind the attack on a 2018 attack on a school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 wrote “I wanna kill people,” “I’m going to be a professional school shooter” and “I have no problem shooting a girl in the chest.” The neo-Nazi gunman who killed eight people earlier this month at a Dallas-area shopping center also had a YouTube account that included videos about assembling rifles, the serial killed Jeffrey Dahmer and a clip from a school shooting scene in a television show.