BEZAWADA: Much more imposing online safeguards are needed, especially for kids
Cocaine, heroin, morphine sulfate and chloroform: Each substance on its own is problematic. Mixed together? A concoction of fantastically disastrous proportions. In the early 1900s?
The ingredients of a staple cough syrup for kids.
But it does not stop there. Children all over the world actively smoked cigarettes until 1971, when tobacco companies finally acquiesced to withdrawing youth-targeted ads from magazines and prime-time television. Just two years ago, the Tide Pod Challenge — a trend in which teenagers would eat detergent in capsule form — was a thing. In 2019, TikTok influencers and Twitter users licked tubs of ice cream in grocery stores for internet clout. And, unfortunately, it is getting worse.
The United States, the heartland of capitalism and its consequences, is historically no stranger to consumerism spurred on by corporate momentum. Often, the main target of consumerism comprised vulnerable young people, and while the legal ramifications of unethical marketing have since tightened considerably, they came too late to reverse the damage that had already been done.
But the onset of the 2010s seems to have set this pattern careening in the opposite direction. Companies that once profited from pressuring impressionable adolescents to follow certain unhealthy trends are now scrambling to prevent the very same demographic from voluntarily attempting downright dangerous activities that misuse or abuse their products.
What changed?
Have kids somehow become … dumber? Well, sure, kids are stupid. That is the point — they are kids. They always have been a bit wonky, and evolutionarily, they always will be.
The frontal lobe, the section of the brain that oversees wisdom, judgment and self-control, does not solidify until adulthood. This forces developing young minds to fail fast, learn quick and adapt quicker, to soak up information far better than they ever will at any other point in their lives.
And therein lies the crux of the issue: information. Or, more specifically, consumers’ increasing inability to discern factual information from fictional.
Consider the case of Ms Yeah. She runs a YouTube channel that specializes in formulating off-beat approaches to common culinary creations. For example, in previous videos, she sliced beef with an iron, spun cotton candy with an electric drill and even baked a cake using a light bulb and a drawer, according to The Sun. All was well until a tragic accident occurred.
Late August of last year, two sisters, Zhe Zhe, 14, and Xiao Yu, 12, attempted to copy one of Ms Yeah’s demonstrations. In the video, the YouTuber used “a … tea stand with an alcohol lamp underneath it” to ignite a flame that would cook popcorn kernels inside a soda can. When the girls tried to recreate the experiment, the can exploded.
The results were horrific — Zhe Zhe “suffered burns on 96 percent of her body." She died two weeks later. Her sister also endured severe burns that as of last September, she was receiving cosmetic surgery to treat.
Five days after Zhe Zhe passed away, Ms Yeah apologized to her stunned followers, but her response was considered problematic. While she called the day of the accident “the darkest day of my life” and that it had inflicted “immense pain” upon her, she posted two disclaimers: first, that the girls had not copied her videos — indeed, if the girls had in fact copied her videos, then they did so incorrectly — and second, that they were “not meant to be instructional."
She also said that many other similar tutorials exist online, which they do. Ms Yeah did pay for Xiao Yu’s hospital bills “regardless of who was right and who was wrong,“ according to her spokesperson. Despite backlash, YouTube stated that her channel did not violate any of its monetization eligibility policies, and she still operates today. Soon, her channel will breach 10 million subscribers.
So, who was right and who was wrong?
Interestingly, Ms Yeah herself warned that “the internet is not an adult internet. A large number of children consume it as an important information source.” Many more channels including 5-Minute Crafts and So Yummy continue to freely share similar “life hacks” that rack up millions of views despite being repeatedly disproven by verified creators such as Ann Reardon, a food scientist who runs her own channel HowToCookThat.
About this tragedy, she states that even if some content is not made for children, they “are still watching, and they are absorbing like sponges and taking this into their brains as this is the way things work.”
To maintain a safe but fair online environment for children, regulations for public material that can be interpreted to convey information must be instated and monitored. Internet activity has jumped significantly since coronavirus (COVID-19) disease precautions were installed, and accordingly, measures must be upheld to clearly differentiate fact from fiction.
The trauma the family of the two sisters experienced unnervingly parallels the formerly unregulated pharmaceutical and cigarette industry, which rolled back only after dangerous symptoms began to surface.
Bountiful information can encourage progress, but can also cause significant harm if used improperly. But, it is preventable. Before cases like Ms Yeah’s resume, authorities must get a head start before the past catches up.
Sruti Bezawada is a Rutgers Business School senior majoring in marketing and minoring in Japanese. Her column, “Traipse the Fine Line,” runs every alternate Wednesday.
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