Online Video Boom Raises Risks, Concerns

Ellen Harris, left, points to a video clip from the web to her kids, Grace, 13, right, Malcolm, 17, second from right, Zach, 15, second from left, at their home in Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday, July 5, 2006. "We certainly shake our heads when we see certain stuff, but there's stuff like that on prime time TV as well," said Ellen Harris of Palo Alto, a mother of three teenagers. "I'm not happy to have my 13-year-old seeing people having sex on the Internet, but I don't lose sleep over it. I just talk to my kids about it," Harris said. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (Paul Sakuma - AP)

-- As if porn sites and pedophiles in chat rooms weren't frustrating enough for parents whose children use the Internet, now online postings of amateur video featuring skin and violence are raising concerns. The explosion in online video-sharing sites, where clips of any nature can be easily uploaded for the world to see, has become the latest challenge for parents trying to protect their children and for Web sites coping with obscene submittals.

Carol Kiesman, a mother and teacher in Houlton, Maine, enrolled her 14-year-old daughter in a cyberspace club called "Zoey's Room," so the teen could chat away online with other girls in a gated community where all participants are screened.

Imagine then how Kiesman cringed when she saw her daughter, 10-year-old son and fourth-grade students recently encounter homemade videos online that included nudity and animal cruelty.

"I don't like that innocent kids can click on stuff like that," Kiesman said. "What you view as entertainment as an adult shouldn't be entertainment for 13-year-olds."

Popular Web sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo, Google and soon also Microsoft Corp.'s MSN are featuring user-generated videos that quickly have become a phenomenal form of entertainment. YouTube, the leading video site that helped catapult the genre with its public launch in December, attracted more than 20 million visitors in May. The company says it averages 50,000 new video uploads per day.

The infectiousness of the video-sharing sites _ users can quickly e-mail friends and family to alert them to favorite videos _ has created feverish sensations: The uncanny star of "The Evolution of Dance," a comedic performance of different dance styles, has amassed more than 25 million page views in two months to become the all-time most viewed video on YouTube, and the explosive backyard science experiment of mixing Mentos candies with Diet Coke has snowballed into hundreds of copycats, remixes and spin-offs.

Within minutes, an auteur's work could be viewed by thousands. At some Web sites, videos garnering the most page views are automatically pushed to a highlighted list or "most popular" section.

But alongside the cute animal tricks, comic sports bloopers and corny lip-synching sessions are extremely weird antics and crude clips of bondage or masturbation. There's a plethora of videos of people vying for some attention and young women flaunting their bodies.

Some viewers, including Ellen Harris of Palo Alto, Calif., consider the racier posts as an outgrowth of today's culture.

"We certainly shake our heads when we see certain stuff, but there's stuff like that on prime-time TV as well," said the mother of three teenagers.

Harris thinks the homemade video explosion is an exciting new form of creativity; her family has gathered to watch some hilarious online clips together. The risque byproducts have simply become another source for family discussions _ alongside television and movies _ on matters such as sex, violence or exploitation.

Still, for now, she's asked her youngest, a 13-year-old daughter, to stay away from MySpace, the leading social networking Web site, which added video-sharing features this year.