Hey there netizen!

(note: hardly anything in that tutorial section is an actual tutorial)

          As concerned Scratchers and netizens, we have observed a deeply troubling trend on the educational platform Scratch.MIT.Edu. Known for its vibrant community—where 95% of users are children—this platform has occasionally featured content on its Explore and trending pages that may not be suitable for its young audience. This inconsistency is alarming, as it exposes unsuspecting children to inappropriate material, potentially harming their mental and emotional well-being.

          Scratch is a space meant to nurture creativity and learning, fostering the wholesome development of young minds. However, the exposure of children to mature content contradicts its purpose. According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and a study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (2017), exposure to explicit or inappropriate material can influence behaviors and attitudes at a formative age, leading to psychological challenges. This is not just a debate about right and wrong—it’s a responsibility to mold a generation responsibly and provide a safe, positive environment for creativity.

We therefore urge the Scratch Team to:

          Thoroughly vet projects featured on the Explore and Featured pages to ensure they are age-appropriate.
Implement enhanced moderation systems to prevent inappropriate content from surfacing.
Consider temporarily disabling the Explore page until measures are in place to safeguard users.
          This petition seeks to protect children's online experiences and uphold the integrity of Scratch as a creative and educational haven. Together, let’s ensure that Scratch remains a positive space for its young users and protects their mental health and safety.

Quote from @FunnyAnimatorJimTV (April 26, 2025):

          "Yesterday there was a project on the Explore page with a shocking thumbnail completely against Scratch guidelines. It took hours/days to be removed. Thousands of people must have seen it, been affected by it, and may leave Scratch because of it. This is no longer just an inconvenience—it's serious and could harm Scratch's reputation. Scratch Team, please consider disabling the Explore page until it can be fixed. Thank you."

          "I've noticed a major issue with the explore page and with the indexer that can lead to serious security problems (Ex: mature content on Explore). This is a known issue that I've tried to report to the Scratch Team in the past, but it has since gotten worse, so I figured it was worth making another post. The problem I'm refering to is the fact that projects seem to not be reindexed often enough after they are shared, which leads to most new projects having search database stats way lower than their real stats. 

Let me explain why this is a serious problem

          If you did not know, Scratch does not use current project stats to order projects on trending, but rather use old search database stats that are not accurate to the real stats. Basically, a project could have 1 000 000 views, but trending and Search could think it only has 1 views if that's what the search stats are for this particular project. Compared to the real stats (the ones you see when clicking on a projects) the search stats, are NOT updated everytime someone views, loves, favourite… a project, but rather need to be updated by Scratch's server to stay as close as possible to the real stats, else they stay the same.

          This is ok if the search stats are frequently being updated by Scratch's server to the real ones (this is called reindexing), but at the moment, Scratch does not update search stats fast enough, so they stay the same for months and are often WAY below the real stats. So, the project first gets indexed (added to search) when it is shared with about 1 view, 0 love and 0 favorites, but theses stats are not updated until months later so the project has no chance of getting on trending no matter how popular it gets, because the search stats will stay at 1 view, 0 love and 0 favorites. In fact, if you check the explore api ( https://api.scratch.mit.edu/explore/projects?q=games&mode=trending&language=en ) or go on https://scratchviews.com/ , you see that most projects on there have search database stats that are extremely low (Ex: below 5 loves). Because this is happening to almost any project, this means that, trending has no way of distinguishing which projects are popular and which are not, so instead of popular projects getting on trending, it's random ones that get on it. Combine this with tag spam and this completely breaks the explore page. Just look at the tutorial tab or the games tab on Explore. There is not a single project that is relevant or not spam:"

-@alexandretherrien (April 25/25)

Let’s collaborate to make Scratch a safer, healthier learning environment for our future leaders. Please sign this petition to promote safety and responsibility on the platform.

Mentioned sections:

Tutorials

Explore

Although said project was taken down, issues with these pages still continue today--help us change that

-@_Duplicate_ and 900+ other scratchers