√Videos of children being used in Tesla safety test pulled from YouTube

Children being used in videos to “prove” Tesla’s Full Self-Driving autonomous technology are in violation of YouTube’s policies.

YouTube has removed a number of videos from its platform showing children being used to test pedestrian avoidance technology on Tesla cars.

In a bid to defend the controversial autonomous driving software, known as Full Self-Driving (FSD), Tesla fanatics took to the video website to post clips of their vehicles manoeuvring around children at various speeds.

YouTube has now pulled down the videos, claiming they are a violation of the platform’s policies.

“YouTube doesn’t allow content showing a minor participating in dangerous activities or encouraging minors to do dangerous activities,” a spokesperson for YouTube told US business news outlet CNBC.

“Upon review, we determined that the videos raised to us by CNBC violate our ‘harmful and dangerous’ policies, and as a result we removed the content.”

YouTube is owned by US tech giant Alphabet (formerly known as Google), which also owns autonomous technology development company and robotaxi operator, Waymo.

“We don’t allow content showing or encouraging minors in harmful situations that may lead to injury, including dangerous stunts, dares, or pranks,” the company spokesperson said.

Critics of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software had posted their own videos allegedly showing the technology failing, with the electric cars hitting mannequins designed to look like children.

While advocates showed FSD was not engaged correctly in some test scenarios, others claimed the dummies were not realistic enough to be recognised by the vehicles.

The result was a number of videos being posted online with children being made to either stand in the middle of the roadway or running across the street in front of a Tesla.

Despite claims the tests were safe, the peak road safety authority in the US came out last week to denounce the use of children.

“No one should risk their life, or the life of anyone else, to test the performance of vehicle technology,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said at the time.

“Consumers should never attempt to create their own test scenarios or use real people, and especially children, to test the performance of vehicle technology.”

This week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the company would soon raise the price of its Full Self-Driving feature to $US15,000 ($AU21,700) – an increase of 25 per cent.

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