Back in September, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against Youtube for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA requires that any websites or services directed towards children must provide not only their information practices but also obtain parental consent to collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
When speaking on the lawsuit FTC president Joe Simons said “…When it came to complying with COPPA, the company refused to acknowledge that portions of its platform were directed to kids. There’s no excuse for YouTube’s violations of the law.” Youtube reaches every demographic, including a large audience of children.
Youtube has been mostly compliant with COPPA by having sections like Youtube kids, and stating that Youtube main is PG-13. When it comes to how they were advertising though is where some problems were encountered. Google was advertising Youtube as a “[the] #1 website regularly visited by kids!” and “…the leader in reaching kids age 6-11 against top TV channels.” This advertising caught the attention of the FTC, resulting in a lawsuit against Google and Youtube, as well as a $170 million settlement.
There’s more than just money involved with this settlement though. In conjunction with paying $170 million Youtube has to take action to separate advertisements from kids’ content on the platform meaning advertisers can not target children. This is good, right, it’s protecting children. The problem that stems from this though is what qualifies as children’s programs on the Youtube platform?
Well, there’s now a set of rules to determine this have been put forth but they cause some issues when it comes to determining what content does and doesn’t qualify. This is a simplified version of just some of those rules:
- Intentionally aimed at kids
- Includes characters, celebrities, or toys that appeal to children, including animated characters or cartoon figures
- Has a predominantly child audience
- Contains activities that appeal to children
These rules are going to and already have caused problems for a lot of content creators on Youtube. There are creators on the platform that have videos that wouldn’t ideally be considered “kid-friendly”, but their audience is anywhere from 7-17.
For example, Jake Paul, not what some people would consider “kid-friendly” having videos titled “’phuck’ you KSI” and “Nerd hooks up with the girl of his dreams” yet the majority of his viewers are kids. You can tell too, not only do you see tons of preteen and teens wearing his merch and going to his live tours but he has 2 Teen choice awards and a Radio Disney Music Award. So if Jake Paul is what kids are watching, but the FTC sees him as unfriendly content for kids where does that put him? Where does that put a lot of creators like gamers or the animators? Well, they have till January 1st, 2020 to determine which of their videos are “kid-friendly” and which aren’t.
Oh, and if the FTC feels that any of the rules have been violated they can fine creators up to $42,000 per video that isn’t in compliance. Plus there isn’t any middleman to protect creators. So if let’s say the Youtuber Dawko who makes hundreds of “Five Nights at Freddie’s”, a game highly directed at kids, says his videos are kid-friendly, but the FTC says any of your videos talking about “Five Nights at Freddie’s” are not appropriate for kids so, he can get fined up to $42,000 per video with no one to protect him or his content.
This can and will leave those calling themselves “self-employed” and “content creators” without jobs. Because of parents’ opinions, creators that have made a living from Youtube will lose their career.
If you ask me it seems pretty rubbish to have one group of people, some of which do NOT even own cell phones, to be making laws on this. There’s not a ton we can do but the FTC is allowing for people to leave comments on these laws to help guide them in the future. I ask of you to please try and leave some form of response to help support the content creators on Youtube.