RIP Family-Friendly Creators Of Youtube?

And herein lies the problem for YouTube, collecting data on children (A child in the US is defined as being below 13 years of age) is illegal and despite the platform being for people above that age of 13, in this modern world of cross devices it is commonplace for children below that age to use the platform.

The $130,000,000 fine issued by the FTC in the United States for being in breach of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) would be just the tip of the iceberg globally if YouTube’s practices didn’t change.  It is transparently clear that YouTube wants to be compliant with the law and to shift any liability from themselves to individual creators of the content

This blog post highlights some of the information we have learned so far.

Kids content will lose the following functionality in YouTube

• Stories
• Community Tab
• Notification Bell
• The ability for users to save to playlists or watch later

The loss of the notification bell is colossal, this leads to the question of how will children’s content creators grow on the platform if users are not notified of new content.

LUKE KEMP 2019

This is a kerching day for lawyers! 

Regardless of your location, YouTube requires you to tell them whether or not your videos are made for kids.   But let’s look at the talked about the definition of content made for kids and why there are so grey areas.

According to the FTC’s guidance on COPPA, a video is child-directed (which YouTube define as “made for kids”)

• Children are the primary audience based on the factors described below.
• Children are not the primary audience, but the video is still directed to children based on the factors below

YouTube states,  when deciding whether or not your channel or video is made for kids, you should consider various factors, including:

• The subject matter of the video (e.g. educational content for preschoolers).
• Whether children are your intended or actual audience for the video.
• Whether the video includes child actors or models.
• Whether the video includes characters, celebrities, or toys that appeal to children, including animated characters or cartoon figures.
• Whether the language of the video is intended for children to understand.
• Whether the video includes activities that appeal to children, such as play-acting, simple songs or games, or early education.
• Whether the video includes songs, stories, or poems for children.
• Any other information you may have to help determine your video’s audience, like empirical evidence of the video’s audience.