YouTube Changes Flagging for Kids Fighting

Kids posting videos of fights they get into is nothing new to YouTube, but evidently the problem has gotten to the point where the video sharing site is changing its flagging language to try and stem the tide. The YouTube Blog has a post up this morning saying that it has renamed the flag category “minors fighting” as “youth violence.” From that post:

The “minors fighting” flag simply wasn’t being used enough, yet the number of these kinds of videos has been increasing. Now you can more easily flag violent videos that include underage people, and we’ll take it from there.

Evidently, YouTube’s takedown measures weren’t working, as the company admits the number of these fight videos is on the rise.

Online video of kids fighting grabbed headlines earlier this year when eight teenagers lured another girl into a home, videotaped her brutal beating and planned to post it to YouTube.

It’s a tough situation for the video site. YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has said that he prefers having the community police video content rather than the company itself to maintain the “fabric” of the service. And this YouTube Blog post reinforces that, calling users its “first line of defense” and reiterating that with more than 13 hours of video uploaded every minute to the service, it just can’t keep up.

But will a simple change of wording drastically change the number of videos flagged? Seems unlikely. So what do you think YouTube should do? Increase police activity on a corporate level, or continue to let users monitor the site?