Horrified mom discovers suicide instructions in video on YouTube and YouTube Kids

Video promoting self-harm tips -- spliced between clips of a popular video game — has surfaced at least twice on YouTube and YouTube Kids since July, according to a pediatrician and mom who discovered the video.

The suicide instructions are sandwiched between clips from the popular Nintendo game Splatoon and delivered by a man speaking in front of what appears to be a green screen — an apparent effort to have him blend in with the rest of the animated video.

When Free Hess found the video on YouTube last week, she posted it on her blog -- warning other parents to take control over what their kids may be watching. 

She said she and many other parents from Facebook groups came together to report it, and the video was eventually taken down after one parent directly contacted an employee at Google.

Hess said after seeing higher rates of suicide in children in her own emergency room over the last few years, she made it her mission to bring awareness to disturbing and violent content being consumed by children on social media.

On Friday, she found and reported seven more disturbing videos on YouTube Kids, and said they were just the tip of the iceberg.

YouTube Kids is meant to be a kid-friendly version of YouTube site for children who are 8 years old and under, but trolls have founds ways around YouTube's algorithm and are posting potentially harmful videos.

She said she logs onto the app posing as a child, rather than an adult, so that she can see exactly what kids around the world are seeing. The videos Hess has found contain mentions or visuals of self-harm, suicide, sexual exploitation, trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and gun violence, including a simulated school shooting.

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