Wow, sheesh. That's terrifying, but it makes a whole lot more sense than my pet theory, was that the videos were screening tools for state actors. They would seed YouTube with videos of beloved characters undergoing suffering and violence, and then use analytics to determine who kept watching. The kids who got squicked out would be collateral damage, but the ones who kept watching would be identified as potentially useful psychopaths, and approached to be recruited into black-ops assassination programs from an early age.

To be honest I'm not sure what's worse -- that or the child molester angle.