I haven't talked much about COPPA on Twitter because it is *wicked* complicated.
Obviously for my own channel it's a non-issue. From vocabulary to subject matter to presentation there's nothing remotely child-facing, and in actual practice under-13 viewers make up 0.1% of my audience, which is margin of error.
A lot of channels that are basically kids ""reviewing"" toys or kids ""playing"" with toys that are asserting that they'll have to shut down their channels as though they weren't the FTC's explicit target because they're skeevy AF and ought to go the way of the Reply Girls.
The people who are really getting hammered are the folks who don't even think they're making children's entertainment, but actually definitely are.
And that one stings because a lot of them are doing really good work that they have never conceptualized as anything other than an expression of their own tastes. Many have literally never thought about "target demographic."
So, in theory how this works is if children are not, at present, your existing viewers then flagging as Not For Kids should remove you from the For Kids algorithm, meaning children shouldn't end up on your video for reasons other than accident.
In theory.
In theory.
Per the FTC's own guidelines, reliable metrics of viewership are a valid argument about a channel's classification, meaning "95% of my audience is 18-25, here's my stats" is a valid response.
That's the same argument that gets back into that squidgy zone, though, because a lot of channels aren't deliberately targeting children, but 30% of their audience is under 13.
The FTC's primary target are family vloggers, toy channels, family finger songs. Numerous high profile toy reviews and family vloggers in particular have been incredibly reckless with undisclosed sponsored content.
The FTC misses the old days when TV channels had tightly allocated blocks based on time of day and it was easy to lay down tight rules about when you could show what and you didn't get on TV in the first place without buying into those rules.
Anyway, the FTC has a Vimeo page and I recommend trying to suffer through the incredibly dry press conference because, like, I'm still wrapping my head around this.
vimeo.com/358354245
vimeo.com/358354245
No, see, this is what they tried to do, but from the success of channels like Blippi and Ryan's World it was *super obvious* that children were, in fact, watching, that YT knew, and Ad Sense was serving targeted ads based on that knowledge
The current action is explicitly punishing YouTube and channel owners (both deliberately and as collateral damage) because one arm of Alphabet was claiming COPPA compliance while another was actively exploiting all the information they were gathering.
Good afternoon.
I've been doing more reading and watching today and have stumbled onto a shocking number of channels that are taking the stand "but if you prevent me from advertising to children then I won't be able to advertise to children"
I've been doing more reading and watching today and have stumbled onto a shocking number of channels that are taking the stand "but if you prevent me from advertising to children then I won't be able to advertise to children"
"This law is bad because it would impact me, a person with a channel largely watched by 9 year olds"
There is, buried in all this, a great reckoning with just how much of YouTube is deeply reliant on being appealing to children.
I have a lot of concerns about the application of strict liability on channel owners. The applicability to Family Finger Songs, Daddyofive-wannabes, Blippi, Ryan's World, is pretty unambiguous, and making that stuff substantially less financially viable is the express point
but the lack of acknowledgement for general audience content made with a good-faith presumption that the audience is 13+ is concerning.
This is where things get messy because we need to distinguish between what the FTC might do and what YouTube might do.
The FTC is not going to fine anyone like myself, Jim Sterling, Lindsay, Ashens, Mike J, doll modification channels, knitting channels, or whoever happens to be making all-ages content about or tangential to child media that is, on actual watch, obviously for a teen/adult audience
BUT!
that doesn't mean YouTube's automated system won't flag it, forcing the channel owner to jump through various appeals hoops, like Content ID but "for kids" instead of copyright.
that doesn't mean YouTube's automated system won't flag it, forcing the channel owner to jump through various appeals hoops, like Content ID but "for kids" instead of copyright.
A concern that I'm still sculpting is that YouTube is effectively loading the burden of compliance *FOR A THING THEY DID* onto us, the channel owners, without giving us the actual tools necessary to comply, and the FTC believes we have more control/data than we do.
Animators are in a far more troubling space which sucks and is going to be hell to navigate because, in fact, some of them *ARE* making children's entertainment even if they don't think they are.
If your animated content is, say, Adult Swim/MTV kind of stuff (or even more adult) then you are pretty much safe from the FTC.
But if you're making Pokemon animations that are indistinguishable in tone or content from official Pokemon stuff? You are making children's content.
But if you're making Pokemon animations that are indistinguishable in tone or content from official Pokemon stuff? You are making children's content.
And every animator needs to worry about YouTube's new enforcement bot being potentially very bad at its job and sending out a lot of false positives.
The appeal of Adventure Time, Steven Universe, She-Ra, MLP, and co. to a wide age range complicates the matter, and the FTC's definitions do not do enough to respect that nuance, but the present reality is that cartoons with a substantial child audience are considered "for kids"
However, the big threat of the $40k fine per violation? That is, in actual practice, likely to be extremely rare for the simple facts of bureaucracy and logistics. I mean, look at how much inarguable copyright violation exists on YouTube and how many have actually been sued.
Getting fined is a legal action. They need to track you down, send lawyers, wait for you to hire a lawyer, arrange court dates, blah blah blah blah blah.
There's no practical reality where the FTC Consumer Protection Dept. has the resources to chase down small YT channels.
There's no practical reality where the FTC Consumer Protection Dept. has the resources to chase down small YT channels.
I should say "justify chasing down small YT channels."
They *could*, awful random things happen all the time, but it's very unlikely.
They *could*, awful random things happen all the time, but it's very unlikely.
