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YouTube just deleted thousands of disturbing videos
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The company said in a blog post that it cracked down on accounts and videos that show children in disturbing and exploitative situations." - photo by Herb Scribner
YouTube announced Monday that it deleted hundreds of thousands of disturbing child videos from its platform.

The company said in a blog post that it cracked down on accounts and videos that show children in disturbing and exploitative situations, according to BuzzFeed News.

YouTube said in a statement to BuzzFeed that it removed more than 270 accounts and 150,000 videos. The company also turned off comments for more than 625,000 videos that were known to be used by child predators.

"Finally, we removed ads from nearly 2 million videos and over 50,000 channels masquerading as family friendly content," YouTube said.

YouTubes crackdown comes as advertisers fled the Google subsidiary after they realized their ads had been paired with offensive content, including the comments section, according to Vice News, which first reported the story.

Advertisers such as Adidas, Mars and Hewlett-Packard halted their ads on YouTube because of the revelations over these videos, Vice reported.

Reports of sexually explicit videos on YouTube have circulated for years. Creepy YouTube channels would often trick children into watching violent videos, according to Mashable.

The videos would appear to be about cartoons of comic book heroes, like Spider-Man, or Disney princesses, like Elsa. But then the videos would take a drastic turn when Elsa and Spider-Man arm themselves with automatic weapons, Mashable reported.

The knockoff videos often fooled parents.

It's perfectly legitimate for a parent to believe that something called Peppa Pig is going to be Peppa Pig," London School of Economics online safety expert Sonia Livingstone told the BBC. "And I think many of them have come to trust YouTube as a way of entertaining your child for 10 minutes while the parent makes a phone call. I think if it wants to be a trusted brand then parents should know that protection is in place."

Laura June wrote about her experience with the videos in a piece for The Outline, encouraging parents to learn from her example of stumbling onto these videos.

She said itd be best for parents to remain cautious with what their children read and watch online.

James Bridle wrote in an essay on Medium that YouTube needs to do more to weed out these videos, considering explicit content makes up the companys subculture.

"I have no idea how they can respond without shutting down the service itself, and most systems which resemble it," he writes. "We have built a world which operates at scale, where human oversight is simply impossible. (T)his is being done by people and by things and by a combination of things and people. Responsibility for its outcomes is impossible to assign but the damage is very, very real indeed."
Its toxic: New study says blue light from tech devices can speed up blindness
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A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers. - photo by Herb Scribner
It turns out checking Twitter or Facebook before bed is bad for your health.

A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers.

That process can lead to age-related macular degeneration, which is a leading cause of blindness in the United States, according to the researchs extract.

Blue light is a common issue for many modern Americans. Blue light is emitted from screens, most notably at night, causing sleep loss, eye strain and a number of other issues.

Dr. Ajith Karunarathne, assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said our constant exposure to blue light cant be blocked by the lens or cornea.

"It's no secret that blue light harms our vision by damaging the eye's retina. Our experiments explain how this happens, and we hope this leads to therapies that slow macular degeneration, such as a new kind of eye drop, he said.

Macular degeneration is an incurable eye disease that often affects those in their 50s or 60s. It occurs after the death of photoreceptor cells in the retina. Those cells need retinal to sense light and help signal the brain.

The research team found blue light exposure created poisonous chemical molecules that killed photoreceptor cells

"It's toxic. If you shine blue light on retinal, the retinal kills photoreceptor cells as the signaling molecule on the membrane dissolves," said Kasun Ratnayake, a Ph.D. student researcher working in Karunarathne's cellular photo chemistry group. "Photoreceptor cells do not regenerate in the eye. When they're dead, they're dead for good."

However, the researchers found a molecule called alpha-tocopherol, which comes from Vitamin E, can help prevent cell death, according to Futurism.

The researchers plan to review how light from TVs, cellphones and tablet screens affect the eyes as well.

"If you look at the amount of light coming out of your cellphone, it's not great but it seems tolerable," said Dr. John Payton, visiting assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "Some cellphone companies are adding blue-light filters to the screens, and I think that is a good idea."

Indeed, Apple released a Night Shift mode two years ago to help quell blue lights strain on the eyes, according to The Verge. The screen will dim into a warmer, orange light that will cause less stress on the eyes.