The Dark Side Of Youtube Hidden in the Search

…. ø·ø ̈ùšù„ø is worse than the dark web

Isaiah McCall
Yard Couch
Published in
5 min readFeb 16, 2023

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ILLUSTRATION: ELENA LACEY; GETTY IMAGES

I typed a period into the YouTube search bar and this weird title appeared:

…. ø·ø ̈ùšù„ø© … ø£øoù†ùšø© ù„ù„ø£ø·ù ø§ù„ … ù„ùšø ̈ùšø§

What popped up was a bunch of videos with the same title and some of the most disturbing visuals I had ever seen. All from just typing a “period.” It was like a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life.

What’s going on here?

Screenshot by author
YouTube (yes, a thumbnail like this exists)

The truth is that the dark web isn’t some inaccessible thing only some weirdos on 4chan can access.

It’s actually just a few clicks away on sites like YouTube.

This should terrify you.

Disclaimer — Going down this rabbit hole is nsfw.

YouTube’s guidelines can easily be broken

I never knew YouTube worked like this.

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Isaiah McCall
Yard Couch

Journalist for 99Bitcoins and former USA Today, also Ultramarathoner | On Substack: https://isaiahmccall.substack.com/ mccallisaiah@gmail.com