coppa...

How vulnerable it is to be a social media influencer.

There is this new update coming out in YouTube in January 2020 named Coppa (Children Online Privacy Protection Act) and I'm terrified.
I really wanted to bring up this on my blog, but  I'm not good at political writing or anything like that. So I put you to watch at least two of these videos below so you can understand the situation:

Youtube announcement

Click here to the video, if this doesn't work

In the end of the video Youtube literally says that you should consult a lawyer..

Just watch this, pitches the problem really understandably way.

The Game Theorists - Will Your Favorite Channel Survive 2020? (COPPA) (22.11.2019)

Lawyer talking about coppa (19.11.2019)

Ian Corzine - "What YOUTUBE's Not Telling You About COPPA"

Quote from youtube announcement:

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Upcoming changes to kids content on YouTube.com

We’re making a few changes to how we collect and use data on kids content on YouTube.com. These changes will address concerns raised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding our compliance under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

In the coming months, here's what's changing: 

• You will be required to tell us if your content is made for kids. In addition, we'll use machine learning to help us identify videos that clearly target young audiences. At a high level, content that is made for kids has an emphasis on:
  • - Children or children’s characters.
  • - Popular children’s programming or animated characters.
  • - Play-acting, or stories using children’s toys.
  • - Child protagonists engaging in common natural play patterns such as play-acting and/or imaginative play. 
  • - Popular children’s songs, stories or poems.

• We will stop serving personalized ads on content that is made for kids, whether designated by you or by our classifier.  In accordance with COPPA, serving personalized ads (ads that are targeted to users based on their past usage of Google products and services) to child audiences is not permissible. If applicable, this may result in a decrease in revenue for some creators. Note that we will continue to serve non-personalized ads (ads that are shown based on context rather than on user data) on content that is made for kids. 
• Some features will no longer be available on this type of content, like comments. The ability to comment will no longer be available on the watch page. Likes/dislikes and subscriptions on this content will not show up on public lists. Overall, viewers will have minimum engagement options with made for kids content on YouTube.com.

...

The original text can be read here.

______________________

So.. The following features are removed from "kid content" videos or channels:
- comments section
- click-through info cards
- end screens
- notification functions
- the community tab
These are all powerful tools for driving viewers back to a channel.

The problem is that almost all content is "made for children" content according to these definitions and needs clarification. For example, games are classified as made for children, but maybe, just maybe, not all games are suitable for children? I wonder if it came to mind? Oh yeah, those who decided on this reform don't even have cell phones. What about animation channels that make high educational content or really dark humor? First YouTube wants us to be kid friendly, but now, don't be too kid friendly though! Now it feels like kid-friendly channels are treated like criminals. There are so many channels for everyone to enjoy, no matter what age! For example Animation or anime reviewers = the video shows cartoon characters, it's child content.

And please be reminded that this COPPA reform will come into effect on other social media as well in a way or another.

While in America the child is under 13, YouTube suggest you to check out your own country's legal age for the child. In Finland, anyone under 18 is legally a child. So even though this should not concern teens, in Finland it does. And teenagers and young adults are the largest audience for most of the Finnish content creators.

My passion is to produce content, especially videos, so I have been so anxious that I haven't been able to fully concentrate on anything. I don't make videos for kids, I do them for everyone. I make a lot of game videos and horror games are one of my favorites. I also make videos of my hobbies, like Cosplay, which will be counted as made for kids content, even though most cosplay enthusiasts are not kids. I talked about this to my colleague for many and they all seem to be very concerned about this and can go really badly for everyone on YouTube. I know, maybe I'm overreacting now, but the fact is that this is already happening early next month.

I found this picture and this would be much better for mixed audience.

However now there is only two options: for kid or not.

Check out more!

• Youtube's/Google's support

• Suomen Tubettajat ry's blog post (only in finnish)

• Request for Public Comment on the Federal Trade Commission's Implementation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule

• Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions

• The verge "YouTube’s new kids’ content system has creators scrambling"

• Ian Corzine - "COPPA INSIDER Update!!! What MORE YouTube Is HIDING" (23.11.2019)

• Roberto Blake - "YouTube COPPA UPDATE! What Creators NEED to Know About COPPA!" (29.11.2019)