Basically, Youtube as we know it is in deep trouble.
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FTC-2019-0054-0001
COPPA’s new law basically makes it so that every single video and channel needs to be listed as whether it is kid friendly or not. If your channel is kid friendly, you will not be recommended on Youtube, you will not be able to have personalised ads, you will not be able to have any ad revenue of any kind.
So this seems easy? Just list your videos and channel as mature content that’s for 18+? WRONG! Somehow (not sure how yet, not even they are sure how this will happen) COPPA and the FTC will search for anything in your content that is deemed ‘kid friendly’. If you read their definition of what is deemed as kid friendly (basically: anything colourful, any ‘kid words’ like “cool” “awesome” or “whatever”, anything cartoony (animation falls into that topic no matter what)), you will realise that this is VERY vague and can and WILL cause problems when this is implemented. Not only that; if you are found out to have kid friendly content that isn’t marked as such, you will be fined up to $42,000. Obviously, for smaller Youtubers, this is a very big problem that could end their youtube career in a heartbeat.
This is all being done as action to protect children’s viewing limits online as well as protect data that’s used in the child’s activity online. (In my mind this is basically saying: parents have defaulted to pushing a screen into their child’s face to shut them up so much so, that now everything posted online is deemed a threat to children, and instead of parents bettering themselves, they’re asking the government to babysit for them.) This was something that has been coming for a long while and previous attempts to protect children’s activities online have been put in place, but now COPPA have had enough and are putting this not only into Youtube policies, but into LAW. But all of this is being made under enormous misunderstandings of how internet culture works. I’m sure you can think of so many content creators on Youtube that ride the line between being kid friendly and mature content; now it’s so precise that someone who has colourful lighting in their web cam set up are now deemed ‘kid friendly’, even if they’re saying “fuck” uncensored out loud.
What makes it worse is Youtube’s attempts to make videos kid friendly since its demonetisation policies started will most likely still be in place: WHICH CONTRADICTS THE COPPA LAW. Any videos a Youtuber has done to monetise their videos (cut out swearing, not done copyrighted or mature content activities) will now fall into COPPA’s ‘kid friendly’ laws. So now we’re having to shift from being monetisation friendly to make money, to being as adult and not-kid friendly as possible in order to get money, but you’ll still get demonetised by Youtube. Creators will have to decided whether to get fucked by COPPA or Youtube’s old system.
This is a law that needs to be refined and altered. Otherwise this could be the end of Youtube. And this may not stop at Youtube…
But what’s important to highlight here is this is NOT something to 100% blame Youtube over. They were fucked by COPPA and the FTC: BLAME COPPA AND THE FTC OVER THIS, NOT YOUTUBE.
in the link you can comment on the policy. Please comment on it and outline that this policy is hugely vague and can either damage Youtube content creators and Youtube as a platform, or will be abused and will not work in the end. This needs to be either gotten rid of or fixed, FAST.
THIS NEEDS TO BE SPREAD AROUND! THIS NEEDS TO BE HEARD BEFORE THE 9TH DECEMBER 2019!!
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FTC-2019-0054-0001
theartofmadeline
stormborns
izzy806
