YouTube has a major problem

I don’t want to assume whether or not you know the rapper Post Malone, but if you don’t, he’s the one with the face tattoos. There’s a good chance you’re thinking of the right person — his, hilariously, say “Always” under his right eye and “Tired” under the left — but there is also a good chance you’re thinking of the many, many other artists who rose to fame on SoundCloud and who have adopted face tattoos as part of their efforts to market themselves. Kaitlyn Tiffany dove into this phenomenon in [a fascinating longform piece]( this week that traces the current wave of face tattoos from mid-2000s mainstream rappers like Lil Wayne and the depressing microtrend of "skinvertising" to what is now appears to be a mainstay on SoundCloud (and increasingly, YouTube). Of one such rapper, 23-year-old Arnoldisdead, she writes: “He has Anne Frank tattooed on the left side of his face, and Anne Frank has a marijuana leaf tattooed on her tiny tattoo cheek, and he actually calls her 'Xan Frank,' in honor of Xanax.” I promise, the rest of the story is just as wild. —[Rebecca Jennings](, reporter for The Goods The world of consumer culture is changing faster than ever. We're here to help you understand it. To make sure we're delivering on that mission with this newsletter, we want to hear from you. If you have a minute, we'd appreciate you taking [this short survey](. How face tattoos turn unknown teens into internet stars [Lil Xan]( Shanée Benjamin for Vox The grace of God is inked into the skin above Justin Bieber’s right eyebrow. It’s been several years since the repentant pop star [found religion](, but only a few months since the teeny-tiny wisp of a shoutout [appeared on his face]( — so small that it took eight weeks for the professional snoopers at People magazine to [figure out]( what it said. The word “grace” is there, though, in elongated middle school cursive, so faint you might think it’s not a tattoo at all. This is, I think we can all agree, the moment in which face tattoos became thoroughly mainstream, and not the moment in which a floppy-haired YouTube sensation turned international pop star — now married and [evangelical]( — became alt. Bieber isn’t the source of the cultural shift; he’s the proof of it. It’s possible he got the idea for a brow bone tribute not from his own mind but from Instagram, where celebrity [micro-tattoo artists]( have been busily making their names for the last several years, sharing pictures of fine-lined tattoos on fingers and temples. Or he could have been inspired by his wife, Hailey {NAME} Bieber, who has [18 of the ultra-tiny tattoos]( popularized by her [supermodel cohort](. Or one of the major-label, market-tested female pop stars who got the idea from each other: Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson, who got a queen of hearts [by her ear]( last December, nearly identical to the queen of diamonds tattoo pop singer Halsey got [in June 2018]( and literally identical to the queen of hearts tattoo [R&B singer Kehlani]( got in the summer of 2015. None of whom, obviously, is the source of the trend either. Face tattoos have been the subject of broad [interest]( and [scrutiny]( in the past year. Most notably, they’ve been picked up as a hallmark of those making [SoundCloud rap]( — a genre best defined by the way it moves the escalation points of budding careers closer and closer together. Face tattoos fuel this escalation, in that they make a new face instantly recognizable. On Instagram, in YouTube videos, in clips pulled out of YouTube videos to go viral on Twitter. They render the face a cross-platform commodity. For a boy with Benjamin Franklin tattooed [on his face]( (and the SoundCloud logo on [his arm](), they connect the dots as he appears on an Instagram account with 2 million followers, then in a [parody video]( that gets [picked up on Twitter](, and then on the [cover of XXL’s prestigious “Freshman” issue](. And they connect the dots between a [nobody YouTuber]( and Justin Bieber. [Read the rest of the story >>]( YouTube has a pedophilia problem, and its advertisers are jumping ship [YouTube logo]( Jaap Arriens/Getty Images For years, [health professionals]( and [childhood advocacy groups]( have been vocal about their concerns over child safety and YouTube. The company has taken measures to try to make YouTube a safe space for children and shield its young viewers from the dangers of the internet. Four years ago, for example, it launched a special app specifically for children’s content, [YouTube Kids](. But despite these efforts, the problems have not gone away. Last week, an investigation by [Wired]( reported that on YouTube, “a network of pedophiles is hiding in plain sight.” People are apparently flocking to YouTube to watch videos of children performing activities like yoga or gymnastics, or playing games like Twister; these users are then leaving sexually suggestive comments on the videos, and communicating with each other as well. Per Wired, there are hundreds of thousands of sexually suggestive comments on videos featuring children. In a statement to Vox, YouTube says it “took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels” and that it will “continue to work to improve and catch abuse more quickly.” On Thursday, February 28, YouTube [announced on its creator blog]( that it would be suspending the comments on all videos that feature minors and other types of content that could be at risk of “attracting predatory behavior.” YouTube said a small selection of accounts will have their comments enabled but will require a moderator, which YouTube will work with directly, to actively watch the comments section. YouTube also said it has updated its algorithm to better detect predatory comments, which is “more sweeping in scope, and will detect and remove 2X more individual comments.” Just days before the Wired story was published, a YouTube vlogger named Matt Watson said he discovered via [an investigation of his own]( that the YouTube algorithm feeds people videos of children playing once they start looking for it — a “wormhole into a soft-core pedophile ring,” as he terms it. [Read the rest of the story >>]( More good stuff to read today - [Do SAD lamps actually work?]( - [The “healthy” snack bar boom, explained]( - [Kim Kardashian’s love-hate relationship with fast fashion, explained]( - [The myth of ugly produce, explained by a scientist]( - [Fake Amazon reviews have been a problem for a long time. Now the FTC is finally cracking down.]( - [Gradients: the colorful design trend aiming to soothe these anxious times]( Manage your [email preferences](, or [unsubscribe]( to stop receiving emails from Vox Media. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.