(Image source from: amazonaws.com)

Amid allegations the YouTube is receiving that the platform is being used by pedophiles to target minors, the Google-owned video streaming platform said it is now disabling comments on videos featuring minors that could be at risk of attracting predatory behavior.

On account to the on-going pedophilia content controversy on YouTube, several international companies including Disney, Nestle and Fortnite maker Epic Games pulled out their advertisements from the platform this week.

Many users as well alleged that YouTube was being inattentive with monitoring content on its application. YouTube, however, claimed that it has been terminating accounts and channels over the past few weeks that have violated the platform's policies.

"No form of content that endangers minors is acceptable on YouTube, which is why we have terminated certain channels that attempt to endanger children in any way," YouTube said in a blog post on Thursday.

"Over the past week, we disabled comments from tens of millions of videos that could be subject to predatory behavior," YouTube said, adding that over the next few months, it will be broadening this action to suspend comments on videos featuring young minors. But the platform is not introducing a blanket ban on comments for all videos featuring minors.

"A small number of creators will be able to keep comments enabled on these types of videos. These channels will be required to actively moderate their comments, beyond just using our moderation tools and demonstrate a low risk of predatory behavior. We will work with them directly," the company wrote.

YouTube said it has a new comments classifier in place that is more sweeping in scope and will detect and take away two times more individual comments.

With a global user-base of over 1.3 billion people, every eight out of ten 18-49 years old people watch YouTube. With the insight of the Internet and smartphones, users below 18 years of age today are also excessively exposed to the platform.

-Sowmya Sangam