Searcy, AR (LP) — YouTube has a few new rules rolling out next year due to previous discrepancies with COPPA regulations. However, these have YouTube content creators and YouTube viewers, including those in Searcy, concerned.

The Federal Trade Commission, a government program that keeps companies and corporations from doing anything that could harm consumers or place consumers in dangerous positions, created the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, in 2000. According to the FTC “COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.” Basically, if you are under 13, a service’s operators and the service itself cannot take your information, be it play time or what videos you watch. For a long time, the FTC never really cared about YouTube or what content creators and commenters did on the service because no problems ever arose. However, the FTC’s apathy would not stand for long as, earlier this year, reports came out that the comment sections of some kid-friendly content had become the grounds for child predation. Due to this, Philip DeFranco reported that YouTube had “disabled comments on tens of millions of videos. Terminated over 400 channels. Reported illegal comments to law enforcement.” This was met with boycotts and backlash from companies such as Disney and AT&T but appeased the FTC. Problem solved.

YouTube’s entire basis is advertising and primarily that of targeted advertisements. This is when you google something or watch a video over a certain topic and you see more and more advertisements about that topic. The problem lies in the fact that YouTube, as an online service, cannot knowingly take information from children under 13 and ever since COPPA was passed it didn’t. This is because to create a YouTube account you have to be at least 13, which falls outside of the restricted age group. So, there should have been no problem. However, Google released multiple comments stating “YouTube is today’s leader in reaching children 6-11 against top TV channels.” YouTube also added “It’s the number one website visited regularly by kids.” These are just a few comments like this that YouTube and its parent company, Google, has made. But what holds back a company from making exaggerated comments to increase hype about their brand? While exaggerated comments are common in business, statements like these can be pretty well backed up by BusinessWire.com, a division of Berkshire-Hathaway. They reported in 2017 that “For time spent in December, Roblox tops the list for kids (under 13) with 51.5M hours, followed by YouTube (19.4M hours) and Netflix (3.4M hours). Roblox came in second for teens (13-17) with 32.5M hours, behind YouTube (59.4M hours).” Due to these comments and the factual basis behind them, the FTC has fined YouTube for $170 million dollars for these cases of noncompliance.

So, now YouTube has decided to act proactively as a part of their settlement with the FTC. Starting Jan. 1, 2020, all YouTube videos must be marked kid-friendly or not kid-friendly. Also, all videos and channels labeled kid-friendly will lose the targeted ads. According to Matthew Peterson, a YouTube content creator “It is unclear how much of a typical YouTuber’s ad revenue comes from targeted ads but from our research, it seems to be between 80% to 90%. Meaning that if a creator loses targeted ads on their video, they lose up to 90% of their ad revenue.” While this only includes channels this may only include kid-friendly videos, the description of kid-friendly is relatively vague. According to COPPA, a video is kid-friendly if the content is “intentionally aimed at kids; includes characters, celebrities, or toys that appeal to children, including animated characters or cartoon figures; has a predominantly child audience; and contains activities that appeal to children.” According to these guidelines, it would include channels such as How It Should Have Ended and Jake Paul. These channels include characters and celebrities that appeal to children and have large child audiences. Despite that, though, both videos included non-kid-friendly content. Jake Paul recently released a video entitled She’s Pregnant, a video about how his wife is now with child. These overtly mature channels fall right into the guidelines of COPPA. One student at SHS, Chad Osborn, says “This is a very big problem. I watch one Youtuber who has 2 channels. One of them is focused on video games, and one of them is focused on toys, both of which have historically been marketed to kids. However his channel definitely isn’t meant for kids. Because of COPPA, he is no longer going to be posting videos to YouTube after this month. These regulations should have never been put in place, and they definitely shouldn’t be forced onto the producers instead of on YouTube. If COPPA wants to protect kids from targeted ads, then they should go after YouTube’s algorithm instead of on their creators.”

YouTube and the FTA still have a good deal to fix within COPPA and how it is to be implemented. So, there’s a good chance this won’t be the last we see of them in the news. Also, if you are interested in further discussion, visit this link to watch an interview with YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki, about how gaming is treated in YouTube and Government circles.