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YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

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Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#31
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube doesn't allow you to create an account if you select an age that would make you a child. But you don't need an account to watch youtube.

Not just a account, youtube requires a age of 13+ (in US) to be used at all as far as I know. This normally would have safely removed any legal problems as a parent allowing the child ( The problem as far as I have heard was that youtube realized that there are a lot of to young ( The problem with the FTC requiring content producers for youtube (13+) to label videos as "for kids" is that with the FTC rules a lot of v…

Via Family Link[0] you can create a Google account for your child that's younger than 13, I bet this in particular does comply with COPPA.

0: https://support.google.com/families/answer/7101025?hl=en

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#33
post #10

> The Rule allows for civil penalties of up to $42,530 per violation > FTC considers a number of factors in determining the appropriate amount > the operator paid a total civil penalty of $35,000 I'll take 'Captured Agency for $100, Alex'

Is that honestly what you derived from "While Google and YouTube paid $170 million, in another COPPA case settled this year, the operator paid a total civil penalty of $35,000."? I know hacker news encourages us to assume the best intentions when responding to comments, but I'm finding that difficult to do when a $170 million COPPA fine was levied by the same agency in the same year, mentioned in the same sentence as…

$170 million, at the maximum penalty only covers around 4,000 violations. I seriously doubt that Youtube violated this rule only a mere 4,000 times.

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#34

I'd like to make a point here that isn't coming up enough in this conversation. GOOGLE knowingly tracked children, marketed towards them, but somehow the FTC allowed them to transfer liability to their creators. No creator has ever tracked children, and yet, they are liable for Google's actions? What options am I left here? I can't make content for children of even talk about anything that might appeal to a child; I…

Google was fined $170 million and required to do better.

> What options am I left here? I can't make content for children of even talk about anything that might appeal to a child

Or ......... you can mark your video as targeted as children.

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#35
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. This is not going to help anyone. Unless parents are willing to take off these devices from their kids they will discover these videos in 5 video watches.

We really struggle with YouTube - for ex. You can’t block it because Kahn Academy uses YouTube. And quite a lot of kids content is really informative and great content. But I can’t tell you how many times we are watching and it literally spirals out of control. One second you’re watching an official frozen 2 trailer, the next you’re watching some jerk’s fan movie made of clips from the original frozen interspersed wi…

Do they still have the YouTube Kids app or whatever it is with whitelisted content?

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#36
post #15

Can borderline channels just say “fuck” at some point in the middle of the video.

I was under the impression no one is supposed to be swearing according to the TOS (at least for minimized channels.) The whole social dynamic here is IMO pretty confusing. Google is kind of an ass to the content creators but they don’t leave. Everyone says it’s about discoverability but video podcasts are discoverable, nicer to creators and literally push your content to your subscribers devices. Not to mention most…

It's almost certainly a network effect/chicken and egg problem. Everyone has YouTube, so putting your videos up only on another platform is sure to break the bank. You could try to really push your audience to another platform, but generally a large portion of your audience isn't interested enough to download a new app or go to a different website to watch just your videos. There would have to be an extreme mass exodus with nearly every prominent creator switching to a new service for most people to make the effort of getting a new app and creating another account.

There is also the problem of any YT competitor needing an extreme amount of money to invest without any promise of return for a long while. Google has invested 20+ years into digital advertising, so unless they use Google ads themselves they end up needing to roll their own ad platform. PR, managing the content creators put on your platform, etc. are also huge mountains to climb, which is why YT continues to struggle to "appease their creators".

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just a account, youtube requires a age of 13+ (in US) to be used at all as far as I know. This normally would have safely removed any legal problems as a parent allowing the child ( The problem as far as I have heard was that youtube realized that there are a lot of to young ( The problem with the FTC requiring content producers for youtube (13+) to label videos as "for kids" is that with the FTC rules a lot of v…

Via Family Link[0] you can create a Google account for your child that's younger than 13, I bet this in particular does comply with COPPA. 0: https://support.google.com/families/answer/7101025?hl=en

Hm, good question. COPPA is pretty old so I'm wondering if "digital consensus by creating the account" is good enough or if you would had to send some more formal document (letter, fax with signature).

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#38

I'd like to make a point here that isn't coming up enough in this conversation. GOOGLE knowingly tracked children, marketed towards them, but somehow the FTC allowed them to transfer liability to their creators. No creator has ever tracked children, and yet, they are liable for Google's actions? What options am I left here? I can't make content for children of even talk about anything that might appeal to a child; I…

"GOOGLE knowingly tracked children, marketed towards them, but somehow the FTC allowed them to transfer liability to their creators." I do not see the the transfer here. Google would still be liable, but able to ban owners who do not properly label their channels. This would protect them of course, but not transfer liability. The FTC specifically mentioned channel owners tracking users via third parties. I did not kn…

After this I imagine A channel owner intentionally disabling "targeted towards kids" in order to get better CPM via personalized ads would be in violation of COPPA.

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#39
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, people who are targeting kids will almost definitely classify theirs as kid-safe. This is not going to help anyone. Unless parents are willing to take off these devices from their kids they will discover these videos in 5 video watches.

We really struggle with YouTube - for ex. You can’t block it because Kahn Academy uses YouTube. And quite a lot of kids content is really informative and great content. But I can’t tell you how many times we are watching and it literally spirals out of control. One second you’re watching an official frozen 2 trailer, the next you’re watching some jerk’s fan movie made of clips from the original frozen interspersed wi…

Maybe this is a bit out there as a solution, but you could set up Streama (1) and set up a directory where the videos get loaded in.

Then you can allow your children to access Streama and they can watch without worry.

(1) https://github.com/streamaserver/streama

Re: YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children?

#40
post #35
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We really struggle with YouTube - for ex. You can’t block it because Kahn Academy uses YouTube. And quite a lot of kids content is really informative and great content. But I can’t tell you how many times we are watching and it literally spirals out of control. One second you’re watching an official frozen 2 trailer, the next you’re watching some jerk’s fan movie made of clips from the original frozen interspersed wi…

Do they still have the YouTube Kids app or whatever it is with whitelisted content?

Unless they’ve changed things, I thought the YouTube Kids app was still algorithm-driven?
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