Gonna be one hell of a year for YouTube, eh?
Hot off the heels of Filthy Frank popping into trash cartoons to teach kids to commit suicide and an honest-to-God pedophile ring, YouTube is smack in the middle of another scandal. Because the mother behind the “Fantastic Adventures” YouTube channel has been arrested on multiple accounts of abusing her adopted children. Her adult biological sons were also arrested for failing to report the abuse.
Machelle Hackney, 48, and her sons were arrested at their Maricopa, Arizona home last Friday.
The Fantastic Adventures channel has hundreds of thousands of subscribers and hundreds of millions of views. The content of each 10-15 minute video revolves around a family of superheroes (the children) fighting off supervillains and evil babysitters.
But the reality behind the scenes was hideously grim. The children that featured in these videos were being beaten, starved, pepper sprayed, locked up for days, and otherwise sexually abused by their adoptive mother. While Machelle’s adult sons, Ryan and Logan, weren’t engaging in this activity, they’re considered complicit by failing to report it.
The signal flare that directed authorities to the abuse was sent up by Machelle’s adult biological daughter, Megan. She told the police that Machelle had been abusing her adoptive siblings by pepper spraying them and leaving them locked in a closet without food or water for days on end. When law enforcement conducted a welfare check at Machelle’s residence, they found a child in an unlocked closet (which did have an external lock on it). The officers found all of the children to be pale and malnourished; reportedly, they told officers that they were hungry and thirsty.
The officers then spoke with the children; reportedly, on of them drank 3 16-ounce bottles of water over the course of 20 minutes. Another, complaining of hunger, was offered a bag of chips, which she declined; she didn’t want Machelle to catch her with chips on her breath.
At this point, they got a search warrant for Machelle’s home. And quickly came up with 2 cans of pepper spray from her bedroom. The children were then interviewed and examined; that’s when the really terrible stuff cam out. One child said Machelle would hit him and his siblings with pepper spray and make them take ice baths, pushing their heads under the water if they refused. Another confirmed the use of pepper spray “head to toe”, as well as accounts of Machelle inflicting injury to his genitals with her fingernails, to the point of drawing blood. And finally, but certainly not least, the third told of the time Machelle pepper sprayed her in the genitals, causing her pain that lasted for 4 to 5 days. All of them had stories of being locked in the closet, which doubled as a green screen room for video production. And, finally, all of them were forced to participate in the videos. If they refused, or forgot their lines, they would be punished.
one of Machelle’s sons, Logan specifically, told police he was aware of the ice baths, pepper spray, and the time the children spent locked in the closet. And yet, he did nothing. Machelle, for her part, denies the pepper spraying and ice baths. She states that the closet wasn’t used for punishment (then why the lock?), and that her method of punishment was to make the kids stand in the corner.
As to the controversy, a YouTube spokesperson said this to Gizmodo:
We take safety on YouTube very seriously. We work closely with leading child safety organizations and others in our industry to protect young people. When we’re made aware of serious allegations of this nature we take action, which may include suspending monetization, or, upon conclusion of an investigation, terminating channels.
The Fantastic Adventures channel remained up, yet demonetized for several days after Machelle’s arrest. Finally, on late Wednesday the 20th, it was terminated by YouTube. And look! It only took them 5 days to make those videos inaccessible and therefore not profitable to them!
In the future, they should probably try immediate temp suspensions. Lord knows they’ll pull that when you have 11 seconds of copyrighted music in a video.
Source: Gizmodo
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