THEIR CONTENT MAY VARY, but video clips such as the one showing a 9-year-old girl dressing like an adult for males and one showing an escapee challenging police, share one thing in common, namely they are immoral, and may even break the law. Thepaper.cn comments:

Needless to say, these video clips will cast bad effects upon the minds of their audiences. Some might argue they there are not that many of them, which is true, but for those who watch them, especially impressionable youngsters, the negative effects might be quite pronounced as even though short-lived they may be viewed thousands of times a day.

It should be noted that the majority of these immoral video uploaders know what they are doing, yet they continue doing the dirty job because they want more people to know of them. These short video bloggers, which are considered by the public to be "exciting" and "unreasonable", are actually following the rules of the game on the short video platform－seeking praise. Their motto is "Whatever measure I take, I must let people recognize my face so as to make more money."

Worse, they share certain interests with the platforms on which they upload their video clips, because the latter hope to attract more users and audiences, too. As a result, the platforms encourage sensationalist video clips, while certain uploaders use that loophole to upload improper even illegal video clips to attract eyeballs.

The short video platforms generally use algorithmic recommendations based on previous videos viewed regardless of the values embodied in the content. The algorithms have no moral values, but people should have.

Two measures must be taken to curb this. First, the platforms must regulate their users and arrange enough hands to clean out the illegal content. Second, the platforms must be regulated, too, by the governmental departments in charge of cyber affairs so that they will pay if they fail to mend the fence.