Lightning Talk: "I Searched for a Religious Song in Amharic and Got Sexual Content Instead”: Investigating Online Harm in Low-Resourced Languages on YouTube

While YouTube has a wide, global reach, little is known about the experience of low-resourced language speakers on it; especially in how they experience and navigate harmful content. To better understand this, we (1) conducted semi-structured interviews (n=15) and (2) analyzed data directly from the platform on policy-violating sexual content focusing on the Amharic language. We find that participants deal with unplanned exposure topolicy-violating sexual content when searching for benign, popular queries. Furthermore, malicious content creators seem to exploit underperforming language technologies and content moderation to further target vulnerable groups of speakers, including migrant domestic workers, diaspora, and local Ethiopians.Content Warning: This paper includes discussions of NSFW topics and harmful content (e.g. abuse, sexual harassment). The authors do not support the creation or distribution of harmful content.