Thread by @garjoh_canuck

🚨New working paper!🚨

We study the "privacy-for-content" tradeoff using the 2019 YouTube COPPA settlement.

"COPPAcalypse? The YouTube settlement’s impact on kids content” w/ @TesaryLin, James Cooper, & Liang Zhong
➡️ ssrn.com/abstract=44303… 1/9

Data sharing increases ad revenue, which pays for free content, & helps personalize websites to better find the content we want. On the other hand, people want more privacy online: especially for kids.
The YouTube settlement shows the consequences of strict privacy regulation. 2/

In Sept. 2019, YouTube paid a record $170M to settle charges it violated children’s privacy law (COPPA). Beginning Jan. 2020, YouTube identified kids content and eliminated all related personalization including: personalized ads, search, content recommendations, & commenting. 3/

YouTube creators worried these changes amounted to the 💣"COPPAcalypse"💣. YouTube is a top content destination for children. Made-for-kids (MFK) content creators planned to create less content, exit, or pivot away from MFK content. 4/

We study 5,066 top U.S. YouTube channels by comparing child-directed content creators (& mixed content creators) to their non-child-directed counterparts using a difference-in-differences design.
Below, we see a clear drop-off in total child-directed content creation in 2020. 5/

Our analysis shows child-directed content creators produce 13% less content (below) and pivot towards producing non-child-directed content.
Ad price data is not public, but one creator shared with us that ad prices fell 73% without personalized ads. 6/

On the demand side, views of child-directed channels fell by 22% even though viewers could substitute to other channels or previously released content.
The drop comes despite a moderate & transient bump in March 2020 that coincides with COVID lockdowns. 7/

Consistent with the YouTube's degraded capacity to match viewers to content, we find that content creation (L) and especially content views (R) become more concentrated among the top child-directed (and mixed) YouTube channels. 8/

Pres. Biden’s SOTU address called for a ban on personalized ads for kids & EU’s Digital Services Act bans this for kids <18.
The social benefit of kids’ privacy may exceed the cost to content supply & demand, but regulators should keep this in mind. END