
YouTube channel owners: Is your content directed to children? - yskchu
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2019/11/youtube-channel-owners-your-content-directed-children
======
PeterStuer
The ftc acts as if the content creator is in control: He can _choose_ to
monetize his _website_ through YouTube or not. In practice YouTube is a
defacto monopoly for these kinds of _websites_.

Now the creators ask YouTube: please give us an option to have channels that
are free of under 13 viewers. It is not my target demographic, and while your
own analytics tell me there are a few of those watching, I do not want them
here. Either block them or if they show up just comply with COPA and don't
track them, OK?

But then YouTube goes: no can do. We either track everyone or no-one, your
choice, and BTW n the latter case, we will decimate your revenue. But you are
as always free to leave for some other _webhost_. LOL! Hey, and BTW, if you do
indicate that your channel is not directed at kids, you are hereby informed
that it is 100% you that is on the line, not us, if the FTC decides otherwise
as we do nothing with all that analytics we have to turn away the kids from
your doorstep.

So content creators are left up shit creeck without a paddle.

~~~
morsch
I'm sure at least a few gaming related YouTube creators are wondering how this
affects them and if a Twitch presence -- which many of them maintain anyway --
isn't a better alternative. YouTube doesn't have a monopoly in that subculture
at least.

~~~
Macha
Most of the gaming ones I've watched have either moved entirely to twitch or
reduced their youtube content to sliced up twitch vods anyway. Since the
"apocalypse"/brand safety changes, many of them have said YT isn't really
worth it from a rev perspective.

------
robbrown451
I'm really not fond of rules that force you to make black and white decisions
on things that are inherently in shades of gray.

I watch a lot of stuff with my 5 year old daughter -- whether on YouTube or
elsewhere -- than we both seem to equally enjoy. Recent ones include Star Wars
Resistance, The Mandalorian, Spirited Away, From Up on Poppy Hill, The
Incredibles 2.

On YouTube we watch "how it's made" videos, as well as a lot of music videos,
such as Taylor Swift and Billish Eilish. A lot of stuff probably has a median
age of viewers that is right around the cutoff age, 13. But lots of over-18
adults like them too and would watch them completely in the absence of kids.

Are these things "for kids"? I don't see how you would make that
determination.

~~~
Stratoscope
I got the email from YouTube a week or so ago, and it seemed clear to me that
they were _not_ asking "is your content OK for kids to watch?"

They were asking "is your content _directed_ toward kids?" The FTC page
confirms that and gives some examples.

To pull an example from memory, I used to watch Blue's Clues with my kids when
they were little. Even though I also enjoyed the humor and creativity of the
show, and the experience of watching it with them, it was clearly directed
toward children.

OTOH, my dogs and cats have a YouTube channel where they show off their
playtime adventures. It's completely child-friendly, but it's not specifically
directed toward kids, it's just dogs and cats playing around. So I didn't mark
the channel or any of the videos as being directed toward children.

I'm not familiar with all the videos you mentioned, but the ones I recognize
would seem to be in the same category as my dog and cat videos: not directed
toward children.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
On one hand, yes, that's definitely what the FTC is trying to say. In their
complaint against Youtube, all of the channels are completely without a doubt
directed towards kids in the normal sense.

But if I'm, like, a Mario speedrunner, when I read that the FTC's indica of
child-targeted content include "the use of animated characters" and "enabled
settings that made their content appear when users searched for the names of
popular toys", I think it's reasonable to be concerned. The FTC should (but
I'm hopeful they will!) clarify that "directed towards children" only applies
when you're specifically trying to get kids to watch it.

~~~
Mirioron
Your Mario speedrun is the perfect example of why people are worried. The FTC
listed criteria that might get your videos be considered as "directed at kids"
and a this type of content would tick a lot of those boxes while clearly not
being directed at kids.

------
jacobwilliamroy
How did youtube manage to convince the ftc that their practice of illegally
surveilling minors is somehow the fault of youtube users? Doesn't every
youtube user provide their age when they make an account? Shouldn't youtube
have some kind of predicate like "if child doNotTrack"?

I think google might be committing libel here. Claiming their users violate
coppa when their users can't even control who google does or does not spy on.

~~~
testvox
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.

~~~
dathinab
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 (<13) to use youtube (on their account, without
account) would be a violation of the AGB's like a parent allowing a child to
play a 18+ game can't sue the game for being violent or similar (i.e. it's
parental negligence).

The problem as far as I have heard was that youtube realized that there are a
lot of to young (<13y) people on youtube and that they can be targeted
advertised (implicitly, in a way which just "happens to" target kids
"accidentally"), and then they where so stupid as to advertise that when
getting in contact with advertisers. So in a certain way they screwed them
self over, or more precise they screwed part of the content creators over.

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 videos which
are not meant for kids and are never supposed to be delivered to kids now fall
under this label and lose targeted advertisement money, which can be there
major income.

E.g. there are a bunch of channels doing LEGO reviews for _adults_ (because
surprise there are a lot of young adults which started to like LEGO again,
parents and also that cray people thinking it's a good money investment). Now
because they do LEGO reviews they will have to label this as a kids thing,
even through the amount of kids on their channels is less then 2%.... Or
basically any easy to understand since video gets practically demonetized,
because it's naturally interesting for 12y olds and has nice animations etc.
This videos are fine to be seen by kids, but the producers would prefer kids
to be excluded as they need to earn money to at least cover production cost.

Also because officially there are not <13y old kids on YT it means YT can't
just "not track" the kids but everyone else.

Also we should not forget that there is YT for kids, so if you produce (good)
content targeted at kids this is where you should go.

So it's a pretty messed up situation. If you now consider who has very large
influence over the FTC and who either hates the modern internet which made
people stop watching classical cable, or would like to additional bill YT
(more?) etc. it's doesn't seem likely to resolve in a reasonable way, at last
I would be surprised. But then I have been surprised before so let's hope it
ends not to bad.

~~~
judge2020
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](https://support.google.com/families/answer/7101025?hl=en)

~~~
dathinab
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).

~~~
vageli
> 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).

I would doubt the need for a physical artifact—I mean, even the IRS accepts
digital returns.

------
hstreet
I haven't done much research on this topic yet. But it's my understanding
that, to sum up:

1\. It's easier not to target children.

2\. This is more of a nuisance for established channels, as they have to edit
every video and mark whether it's directed to children or not.

That's if I'm not wrong. I mean, I've mainly gotten my information from this
one video so far:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwDrHOe43E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwDrHOe43E)

I'm only a new creator so it's not really going to be much for me to worry
about, and I can't think of a single reason why anyone under the age of 13
would want to watch my content anyway. It's about as boring adult topic stuff
(building a business and corporate life rantings) as you can get.

~~~
Mirioron
The main worry creators have is that the FTC is the final decider whether your
content is for kids or not. They say that things such as animated characters
and flashy graphics can put your video in the "for kids" category regardless
what you indicate the video as.

~~~
tsimionescu
I think even more, the worry is that the YouTube algorithms are the initial
deciders, and they tend to have high false-positive rates that it is then
_your responsibility_ as a creator to overturn.

Note: the way YouTube has set this up, it is the creator's legal
responsibility to mark their videos appropriately, but YouTube will also be
running an algorithm to automatically flag videos as a best effort approach.

------
manigandham
How Youtube is handling this is a major failure. Even if creators say their
videos aren't for kids, they can still be contested, overruled and fined.

A proper solution is to create an age-gate for videos with categories of kids
only, older-only, and general audience (which is allowed by the FTC). Also
stop tracking tracking anonymous users.

This would allow creators to categorize content without losing all
monetization and features, or risking legal action. That would be more
expensive to implement though so it's not happening.

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

~~~
swiley
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
devices ship with a video podcast app as part of the OS now.

I think it’s more of a sort of digital Stockholm syndrome, kind of like how
MacOS users enjoy working around defects youtubers enjoy dodging censorship.

~~~
Mirioron
> _but video podcasts are discoverable_

No they're not. Does the average person know what you're even talking about
here? Because I don't know and a service that's unknown is not discoverable.

~~~
viraptor
I think there's a difference between discoverable content on a service and the
service itself being discoverable. Podcasts (video or audio) are relatively
easy to find once you're actually into that. But I very rarely hear anyone
mentioning video podcasts at all.

~~~
bscphil
> Podcasts (video or audio) are relatively easy to find once you're actually
> into that.

I'm on the consumer end of this. Basically every Youtube channel I'm
subscribed to is effectively a video podcast, with new "episodes" every so
often, from a few times a week to once a month.

I would love not to have to look to Youtube to find new feeds to subscribe to
(in some cases literally subscribe, Youtube has RSS!). However, I don't have
the slightest idea where I would begin looking for video podcasts. Maybe an
RSS aggregator? But not everyone uses RSS... Any suggestions?

------
WrtCdEvrydy
> 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'

~~~
laser
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 the $35,000 fine that you derived your tidbit from.

~~~
bowlich
$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.

------
droithomme
This is totally insane! If children like to watch your youtube channel
(perhaps it is Algebra tips or information about dinosaurs or black holes)
you're required to obtain parental consent? The problem with designating the
channel host as the person responsible is _they are not the one collecting the
information nor do they even have access to most of it_. YouTube is the one
collecting and using the info.

No where on my YouTube channels am I allowed to see the ip address of anyone
who views it. Nor can I track individuals. But YouTube themselves can and do
do this.

Also collecting legally binding consent from parents for their kids to watch
channels is going to be way more of a breech of personally identifying
information than not having that rule. For legally binding consent I'm going
to have to verify their actual identity and that they are the legal guardian
of the minor watching the channel. And from a practical standpoint I don't
even see there is any way at all that doing so is even technically possible
given the current YouTube design.

The only way to comply with this is to kill all videos and channels that have
any content that might be of interest to children. Die all you homework help
and approachable science channels!

------
jacobwilliamroy
> channel owners

Do youtube users actually "own" their channels or is this just an incorrect
wording? What is meant by "own" here?

~~~
johnpowell
It always bugs me when people say "my Facebook" or "my Twitter". I would
assume there is the same sort of false ownership thing going on when people
say they own the channels.

------
aplacelikethis
... so now every YouTube video aimed at the general public has to open with
some violence, drug use or sexual content? Just to make it abundantly clear
that it's not for children?

------
jcriddle4
The proposed new rules might mean an over 50% cut in revenue to a channel
possibly driving the smaller players out. Very interesting side effects of
regulations.

~~~
killjoywashere
And the price of food is higher than the theoretical lower limit because we
require FDA and USDA inspections. This prevents some number of Americans from
opening "mom-and-pop" grocery stores.

I'll take the regulations, thanks.

~~~
manigandham
That's entirely dependent on the regulations. What exactly is being
accomplished here with these changes?

This isn't a problem with creators, it's Youtube violating regulations with
data collection practices and then continuing to do so by pushing the
compliance burden onto the community.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
I subscribe to a video game channel that primarily covers only racing games
and hardly swears. Is that considered directed to children? This is such a
mess.

------
csours
Dan Olson/Folding Ideas:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuScIN4emyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuScIN4emyo)

Upshot is that YouTube is pretending that they can't make good segmenting
tools.

------
throw7
Nice to know that the actual parents of children are the channel owners of
youtube and google.

cool.

------
killjoywashere
99% of channel owners producing content for children know their market
includes children; the other 1% are lying. This gives Youtube's army of
annotators better basis to flag the liars. Not just that the content is
directed to children, but that they are liars.

~~~
Mirioron
And if the FTC decides that your Mario speed run is kids friendly, because it
has animated characters, flashy graphics, and is related to toys? Speed runs
most definitely aren't targeted at kids, but according to FTC rules that could
be classified as kid friendly.

~~~
thekyle
This isn't really an area that I'm super familiar with but why wouldn't a
Mario speed run be kids friendly? That seems like the type of thing I would
have watched when I was 12.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrun)

~~~
manigandham
THe point isn't being kid-friendly, it's whether it's _directed_ primarily to
kids.

If it's deemed to be that way (by the FTC or by Youtube) then it overrules
what the creator claims and can eliminate their monetization and open up legal
risk and fines.

------
ClaudioHG
I think this mess (because it is a mess) is two fold. On one side FTC
mistakenly deems content creators as "operators" of "websites" or "online
services". This terminology is very important as it is the legal basis upon
which the FTC may go after content creators. On the other side YouTube have
managed to deal their penalty by accepting to "police" their content creators
(as it can be clearly understood by carefully hearing what the FTC
representative said in the press conference) by adding this new "made for
kids" checkbox, and at the same time refuses to implement a gate age that
would solve this whole mess at the root.

Also, the word "kids" do not exist in the legal parlance of the code nor the
Rule set by FTC, they only mention "children" and they provide a definition
for them: every person in the 0-12 ages. This is also to clarify some
confusion that may arises from the concept of "minor age" and "children" as
defined by this law.

So let's first address the FTC assumption that content creators are "websites"
or "online services", remembering that what is relevant here is the collection
of personal information from children _without prior verifiable parent 's
consent_.

So let's make just one rethoric question: do content creators really own their
"channels"? Do they are able to verify parent's authorization and provide them
the information about the use of the collected information? Do they can even
access the collected data? Do they have the ability to make any change on
their "website" apart what YouTube allows them to do? Of course no, no, no.

Here the FTC have attempted to charge a responsibility on the content
creators' shoulders assuming something they are not. With the pretext content
creators benefit bt earning a small, SMALL, share from what YouTube/Google
earn exploiting their creativity, art and skills, FTC is mistakenly assuming
they are "websites" or "online services" when they actually lack all the
relevant power required to do things that could make them compliant (or non-
compliant) with the law.

Content creators are just users, or at most suppliers as a storyteller authors
would be for a publisher, while YouTube have the ultimate control of how,
where, when, and at whom to serve _its_ content (yeah, because you give to YT
a worldwide unlimited non-exclusive license of your content when you upload on
their platform, so as long as you do not remove your content they hold it in
full control).

YouTube already have broken the law by tracking children without parent's
consent, as we learned from the Civil Judgment and the attached Exhibits; so
let's now suppose you label your content as "for kids", well, what tells you
they won't break the law again? They say they turn off many features to avoid
to track children, but is that for real? Are you in control to check that
through your "website" they won't really collect data from children? Where is
your power in doing so?

There is none. And remember the law is about collecting data from children
without parental consent, not labeling your videos to be "made for kids".
Under the current FTC's assumption you would be deemed liable even if you
labeled your videos as "made for kids" if, despite this, YT would collect data
from children.

Into this swamp YouTube is swimming to make business as usual by placing
persistent identifiers (AKA cookies) to track users while handing over the
liability to the content creators, with the complicity of the FTC it seems.

Now, let's have a moment to think about GDPR, is YT compliant with that
Regulation too? If you are an EU resident, did you ever seen a notice that
inform you what cookies are used, what data are collected, where, and the
exact address of who is in charge to ask about your data and to exercise your
rights under the provisions of the GDPR?

(It is a genuine question, I did not check.)

------
acollins1331
Spiderman and Elsa videos just got the vanned

------
ferongr
The Mouse strikes again.

------
oceanghost
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 can't make adult content or
swear, or be dark because advertisers don't like that.

~~~
ghastmaster
"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 know that was possible. I did not see any examples
referenced either. As such, channel owners cannot be liable. Correct?

~~~
judge2020
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.

