S03 - E05 - Dec 23, 2019
The COPPA Crisis
COPPA Crisis
- Early November Google announces changes to kids content on YouTube set to go active at the start of the new year
- Then, all channels were asked to denote if their videos were made for kids or not
- Now, YouTube creators are getting worried
- So what’s the story?
- Why the worry?
COPPA
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
- Enacted back in 1998 when the internet was really taking off with kids (remember Neopets? Limewire? AOL?)
- Required the Federal Trade Commission to issue and enforce regulations concerning online privacy of children under the age of 13
- Designed to put parents in charge of deciding what information about their child is tracked by websites
- If a site is collecting information, the parents must agree before the child can continue using the service
YouTube
- Users of YouTube must be older than 13 to use the site
- This side steps the COPPA compliance issues
- YouTube Kids is compliant
- Launched in 2015
- No comment section and advertisements are kid friendly
- September they lose case to FTC ($170 million settlement)
- Claims made that YouTube was using its kid population on regular YouTube to woo advertisers
- Also argued YouTubed had tracked the data of children
- New rules now being put in place
- Content creators must mark their content as made for children or not
- From Google: “we'll use machine learning to help us identify videos that clearly target young audiences. At a high level, content that is made for kids has an emphasis on:
- Children or children’s characters.
- Popular children’s programming or animated characters.
- Play-acting, or stories using children’s toys.
- Child protagonists engaging in common natural play patterns such as play-acting and/or imaginative play.
- Popular children’s songs, stories or poems.”
- FTC will determine “kid-directed” based on factors including:
- the subject matter of the site or service
- the video’s visual content
- the video’s of animated characters or child-oriented activities and incentives
- music or other audio content in the video
- age of models featured in the video
- presence of child celebrities or celebrities who appeal to children in the video
- language or other characteristics of the website or online service
- and whether advertising promoting or appearing on the website or online service is directed at children.
- All very vague stuff
- What does this mean for content creators like Carbot or those that play games like Minecraft or Pokemon?
- If content is deemed aimed at children, a few things will happen to video
- Comment section disabled
- Likes/dislikes disabled
- Subscription button disabled
- Personalized ads stopped (ads run based on information collected about the viewer based on their viewing habits)
- THE BIG ONE
- Ads will still run based on video content, but no longer targeted toward viewer
- Videos not running targeted ads lost 60-90% of total revenue potential (according to TubeFilter)
- Ex: It was going to make $100, it now only made $10-$40
- Imagine if this hits all videos of a content creator
- Could potentially bankrupt creators
- What if the video isn’t flagged properly?
- $42,000 fine PER video not labeled correctly
What’s Being Done
- YouTube creators are working together to offer their input to the FTC. Some points include:
- Creators are asking for clearer definitions of what counts as kid-directed content
- 6 months to adjust to new rules before punishments can be given
- Parents should be given more responsibility for allowing their kids to use YouTube main instead of just YouTube Kids (not put all responsibility on creators)
Will this affect you?
- Probably not
- This is a cause for concern for content creators, not viewers
- If you watch videos that are flagged, the ads might be different, but you’ll still be able to watch
References