Disgraced bloggers Michael and Heather Martin who posted videos as DaddyOFive
and FamilyOFive have finally been banned from YouTube nearly a year
after being sentenced to five years of probation for child neglect. Welcome back
to What's Trending, I'm Martine Beerman. Make sure to subscribe for more stories
about parents who value money over their children's well-being. In 2017, we told
you about DaddyOFive's series of prank videos where Michael and Heather would
play cool pranks on their own children.
The DaddyOFive YouTube channel
contains dozens of similar videos showing Michael and Heather destroying
an Xbox, and pushing their son Cody into a bookcase. In one video Michael even
initiates a game he calls bottle flip slap, which ended with the kids being
encouraged to hit each other.
And people saw these videos which racked up
thousands and thousands of views, and then eventually they reported those to
youtube and to the police. Child Protective Services found that Cody and
Emma had experienced observable identifiable and substantial impairments
of their mental or psychological ability to function. Yeah, because what kind of an
environment is that for a young kid to live in and grow and learn how to
develop and be to other human beings even? Never mind how they then feel about
themselves. Emma and Cody who are Michael's biological
children were removed from the home and currently live with their mother Rose
Hall. Heather's three biological children were not part of the investigation by
CPS. Michael and Heather entered Alford pleas in court, meaning they maintained
their innocence, but admit that the prosecution had enough
evidence to get a conviction. Yeah, no sh*t they did. You did all these awful things
to and with your children and you boasted about it and put it out on the
internet. In September of 2017, the couple was sentenced to five years probation
for child neglect, but shamelessly somehow even after that
they started a new channel and they just started to post some new content. Cause
that's okay, right? Not. And they say they received assurances from YouTube that
their content was just fine. Video: "Today, the video mom, Heather Martin released a
written statement saying their recent videos were merely entertaining skits
and that much of the content was staged, she claims YouTube YouTube has given it
to them in writing that their videos were in bounds and family friendly
contact." After increased pressure from the public and media, YouTube made the
decision to delete the Martin family's channels. FamilyOFiveGaming and
familyOFive, and Rose Hall (that's Emma and Cody's mom) thinks it's about time.
And she's not alone in that thought. In a statement Google said "Content that
endangers children is unacceptable to us, we've worked extensively alongside
experts in child safety to make sure we have strict policies and are
aggressively enforcing them. Given this channel owners previous strikes for
violating our guidelines, prohibiting child endangerment, we're removing all of
his channels under our Terms of Service." But in a video posted to the channel,
Team DO5 Fans, Heather Martin's three sons argue that the channels were
deleted unjustly, and that their pranks were faked to ensure safety.
Video: "This time we legot.. we have outtakes ...it's not real, it's entertainment purposes. Everything that we've done
it's, I'm, I know. Everything we've done has been off the top of the head, it's
been thought up in our head as an idea." These kids were given so much as a
result of posting these videos and in some of the videos, the parents
say like, "if you don't do this prank, we're gonna take your iPad away, or we're
gonna take this away," so they've been conditioned that doing these things gets
them different items that they want, and then of course they're gonna say, as kids
"yeah, we want our iPad," and "yeah, we want our computer," and "yeah, we want our bike
to be just like the rest of our friends." And it's hard to know whether a kid can
even say to you, you know, "it's okay that those pranks were done to me, because the
long-lasting effect of the pranks will start to show up later on in life." The
channel that that video is on Team DO5 Fans is still up and running, and maybe a
conduit for Martin, Heather and the three boys to continue to put out content. I
think that videos like this, and situations like this create a larger
conversation about the fact that for a really long time, this family was able to
put out videos and make money off of being mean to one another, and then
culturally we looked at it and we were like "oh, that kids crying because his
head's bleeding because his dad shoved his face into a bookcase." It took a while
for people to take action and do anything about it, so it does make me
question where we're headed as far as media, because I think a lot of people
will watch the stuff, and laugh at it because the kids laughing, or because a
parent thinks it's funny to make fun of their child. But they're not looking at
the grander, larger picture of the emotional effects that this has on the
kids, on the family and then again on your kids who might be watching, or
people watching in general. What do you guys think? Should the FamilyOFive
remain banned from YouTube? Let us know in the comments and for more trends head
to what'strending.com