On January 15, 2020, the police of Pơng Drang commune, Krông Búk district, Đắk Lắk, summoned two seventh-grade students for producing, storing, and selling explosives.
According to the investigation results, the incident began with U.H.P (14 years old, a seventh-grade student at Lê Hồng Phong Middle School, Pơng Drang commune). Through various YouTube channels, P learned how to make firecrackers and borrowed money from friends to buy materials for production. As a result, P made 23 firecrackers. P tested one by igniting it and then sold the remaining ones to a person in Buôn Hồ town for 7,000 VND each.
After completing the transaction, P gave the leftover materials to P.N.H (a classmate) to teach how to make firecrackers. During the production process, P.N.H was burned due to an explosion. Fortunately, the family took him to the hospital in time at Hòa Bình General Hospital. His health is currently recovering.
From this incident, it can be seen that the root cause comes from the clips teaching how to make firecrackers online. To verify this issue, we searched the keyword “firecracker tutorial” on YouTube. And surprisingly, the number of clips and views is truly shocking.
From the formulas for making explosive materials to tutorials on creating black powder, making firecrackers, producing grenades, how to make small firecrackers, and even Molotov cocktails and chemical bombs… everything is detailed meticulously. The viewership of these clips is extremely large, with some having just a few thousand views, while others reach hundreds of thousands or even half a million…
In every aspect, content like this is extremely dangerous, regardless of whether the audience is children or adults. It seems that it is time for YouTube to genuinely pay attention to these harmful products. As for the online community, we also need to join hands to boycott and report such clips. For a clean, civilized, and progressive online environment, we cannot turn a blind eye.