Think analytics will play any role or does it not matter? My YouTube videos show 79.3% who watch are 25-34, 15.7% 18-24, and 5% over 34. But I’m a Pokémon channel.
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According to the FTC, it doesn’t matter what a person’s actual audience or intended audience is. If it deals with kids content (cartoons, collectibles, toys, etc.) it will be considered “Made for Kids” . . . I hope they ease back this vague definition though.
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Since this is a federal law (not a YouTube policy), it will affect any/all media platforms that use targeted ads and recommended content based on viewing history.
Is COPPA really the main problem here?
I mean, the law has been in effect for almost 20 years.
And as much as I like to blame boomer politicians and useless bureaucrats for outdated laws, I see YouTube as the bad guy here.
This whole thing is only a problem, because YouTube collects all the data and instead of thinking of solutions, they push the blame on their creators.
YouTube Kids is still a thing, isn’t it?
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YouTube’s recommendation algorithms are a huge problem. There are plenty of articles on how the most mundane videos can “recommend” more and more extreme videos, so you can go from a random science video to “the Holocaust never happened” just by following a series of guided recommendations.
It’s a shame that rather than edit their algorithm YouTube will pretend it doesn’t exist for young viewers. Because as we all know, no one in history has ever lied about their age online to gain access to a website.
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Yeah the frustrating thing here is YouTube shouldn’t pretend they give a shit about kids-- if they did, they would work harder at monitoring content and removing the blatantly harmful things that somehow slip past them. Kids getting toy ads and ads for a new Disney movie thrown at them isn’t a big, scary deal…maybe they should instead get rid of the videos that are obvious grooming by pedos. 
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Don’t trust Patreon. They have and will kick anyone off their platform for any reason without recourse
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Sure, I meant more that I can have a subscription only basis for my content. Whether that is on patreon or another platform is secondary.
Overall I think everyone is on high alert, for good reason. But I’m still holding out this won’t be as bad as assumed, wishful thinking!
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What a weird law. If the purpose is to protect kids, shouldn’t they do something against harmful content and not genuinely wholesome content like Leonhart’s? I mean instead of erasing content made for kids, they could prosecute harmful content creators and/or impede the access to adult content for minors. If content for kids is becoming unattractive for creators there will be more adult content on the platform in the long run, but it can still be accessed by kids.
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Personally, I don’t think the government gives two cents about the kids. This is about money and trying to hurt Google’s ad revenue. It’s no surprise that this originated from the NY AG who got their state $34 million of the $170 Million fine working with the FTC.
Digital Ad Revenue topped $100 Billion for the first time in 2018 and Google and FB are a big part of that. They have hurt a lot of the more traditional sources of ads like newspapers and TV networks so they are going after them. It’s why the WSJ went after Pewdiepie a few years back. They didn’t care about his content they cared about hurting Youtube’s biggest content creator and their ad revenue and a lot of advertisers left for a time after that broke.
But I do agree with a lot that has been said here, at what point is it the parents responsibility to parent their children. We are at the point where we have politicians that believe they know what is best for you and your children and that is just scary to me.
No fan of Google or FB and we’ll see how it pans out but I personally think they are going to hurt a lot of good content creators or force them to start dropping the F bomb every video.
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Actually the government allocates TRILLIONS OF “OUR” DOLLARS for the kids. My opinion is, DON’T. We can take care of our own. Same point for this topic. We’re the parents. It’s our job to monitor our kids.
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Matpat (gametheory) said in his video that after talking to Youtube’s CEO she revealed some of these lawmakers don’t even own phones.
She needs to explain YouTube to these people.
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I encourage anyone interested to read up on Europe’s article 13/17 and specifically what key politicians said during the debate. Anything internet that’s more than just “we need faster internet” were and always are bureaucratic dumpsterfires. “Have you ever used or seen Twitch?” “(squeaky Mickey Mouse voice) NEIN!”.
The EU guideline still has to be converted into national law, so we don’t see the consequences yet.
Regarding this issue now it’s probably important to talk to politicians and not just hope it’ll be alright, make the issue as public as it can be. As far as I understand, this time there’s no huge lobby on the other side that would affect the outcome, so the comments they’re actually asking for may be considered.
I also don’t think many parents even know about this, let alone the YT Kids App.
That’s not talking about what YouTube did wrong in the past, the videos on the topic do that best.
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How will this affect the thousands of YouTubers posting gaming gameplay. Video games appeal to kids.
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The whole thing is a farce. I feel for big gaming/Pokemon/ collecting channels that are in jaepordy. We need some serious clarification to eliminate ambiguity. How we can boil content down to just ‘For Kids’ or ‘not for kids’ ?
I despair.
Don’t they have some sort of parental controls for YouTube?
You need parents for that. 
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Children are about 100x smarter than most adults give them credit for. All a kid has to do is google ‘How to turn off youtube parental controls’ and there will be guides there waiting for them. Need a password to change settings? They’ll find a way around that too.
One of the traps of parenting is tricking yourself into thinking you are always going to be one step ahead of your child, often it’s the other way around.
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Most of them don’t get it. If you want to see how bad their sheer ignorance and unwillingness to learn is just watch the videos from when Zuckerberg was testifying regarding how Facebook works. Most of them looked completely lost.
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