CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Maryland family is apologizing for a series of videos posted on YouTube that some viewers said showed them abusing their children.
A local child psychologist, who called Child Protective Services about the family, told Channel 9 anchor Blaine Tolison that YouTube should have done more.
The videos that made the Martin family YouTube stars have been taken down.
The family called the images of their crying children mostly acting.
The local psychologist, who works with children every day, told Tolison that it's real and not the only case out there.
The Martin family, with their “DaddyOFive” YouTube channel, told "Good Morning America" that they made poor parenting choices portraying themselves that way.
Videos of them pranking their children and sometimes screaming profanities at them received millions of views.
They have since taken down the videos and apologized.
"We are not bad people,” Heather Martin said.
"I was blown away,” Southeast Psych psychologist Dr. Frank Gaskill said. "These are little kids. They can't make sense of this. These are their parents."
When Gaskill saw the videos, he called Child Protective Services in Maryland.
"They said, 'We can take your report. We cannot comment on an ongoing investigation,' so I can assume they were being investigated,” Gaskill said.
He said the bigger issue is that the videos weren't taken down by YouTube.
Gaskill said the Martin family had 275-plus videos posted online, more than 160 of them depicting alleged physical child abuse.
"I don't get how this clear child abuse was left online for such a long period of time, and yeah, I do hold YouTube accountable for that,” Gaskill said.
His message for the community is to report it when you see it.
"You can even report child abuse anonymously, so let’s stop being a bystander and stand up for these victims,” Gaskill said.
Gaskill said there are other videos posted on YouTube showing abuse.
He contacted YouTube, but didn't get a response.
Police in Maryland are investigating the videos to see if the Martins could face criminal charges.
Channel 9 also contacted YouTube, which confirmed that ads were removed from the “DaddyOFive” channel and that "videos violating YouTube's community guidelines are removed from the platform."
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