So…about that COPPA thing

I work for a kids entertainment company, so I've totally been researching this stuff. Here's a rundown.

Basically, Youtube creators are mostly doing nothing wrong (but some of them are). Youtube is doing a lot wrong, and they're trying to put the responsibility onto the creators.

So basically... COPPA means that companies shouldn't collect data on kids, like their name, address etc. There are also rules that kids shouldn't be able to private message or post comments or otherwise given opportunities to share details like their real name, address or phone number. If kids DO share this information, even if they do it by blatantly flaunting every rule and say, drawing a picture in an inbuilt oekaki system and carefully concealing their phone number in the picture (you may laugh, but this is a thing that happens on Popjam, for reals. Anyone who has or works with kids knows that kids are not always sweet little darlings, they can be manipulative and cunning little s), it's on the company, not on the kid that did it.

So... where does Youtube come in? Okay, so... to have a "grown up" (standard) Youtube account, you need an email, and youtube needs to collect the data of your email address. For that to be legal, the person must typically be 13+ years old (though this actually varies by country), which is seen as old enough to have the understanding to agree to give away that data and what it means to do so (kinda like getting your first proper bank account or doing a part time job, also things in many countries you can do at 13).
So for younger kids, Youtube made... Youtube Kids! ...Which kids over age like six don't want to go on... because it's called "Youtube Kids" (let's face it, if you were eight, you would probably see yourself as being grown up enough for proper youtube and watching the kind of thing your older siblings watch, just like when I was eight I wanted to listen to Alanis Morisette like my cool teenage big sister, not like... nursary rhymes or whatever).
So since the actual children who aren't pre-school age are on standard Youtube, companies like Lego and Cartoon Network have set themselves up on standard Youtube where the audience is... and here comes the problem.

So, Youtube has a bunch of people on their platform making content that is blatantly meant for kids, because everyone knows kids are using it, even though they're not supposed to be using it. Is that bad? Well, for Youtube... yes, yes it is. COPPA violations come at about $40,000 a pop, and usually if a person is violating COPPA, it's not just once. Companies have already incurred millions of dollars in fines just for things like not paying enough attention to what data their third party analytics software has been collecting.
If somebody can prove that Youtube is knowingly hosting content intended for kids under 13 on their platform, and has not made every possible effort to stop this happening, the amount that Youtube could be sued is... potentially astronomical.

So their first action was to say to the bigger creators like Lego, "Okay no no no, if you're posting videos on normal youtube, they can't be for kids! We'll have to kick you off the platform if you do that!" to which those creators responded, "Ohhh haha noooo we're not making this for kids!", and so you get things like the Lego channel never addressing the audience like "hey kids!", never featuring any children in videos, never speaking about lego as a children's toy except in a context like "this would be a great present for your child, adult viewer!" ...basically, all the channels making kids content pretend that they genuinely believe that they, the Lego/Cartoon Network/Roblox channel are making content intended entirely for an adult audience.
But now it seems like that isn't enough any more, because it's so blatantly transparent. So Youtube now wants creators to say on their videos "THIS IS NOT FOR CHILDREN, IF YOU ARE A CHILD, STOP WATCHING THIS!" to put the onus onto the people making content because of their complete lack of ability to stop kids from being attracted to their platform, making illegal accounts and ignoring the alternative provided because it's just so uncool to older children.

If you don't do it, you shouldn't be the one to incur a COPPA violation, but it's possible Youtube could turf you off their platform for encouraging kids to their platform so that Youtube might incur one.

If it helps any, Neopets has been COPPA compliant for years; and though their content and user created content was HEAVILY regulated and limiting for many years, over time they just stopped caring as it was obvious they didn't have to avert children's eyes to anything remotely romantic or dramatic and they never got fined. However, Neopets doesn't use Youtube's broken ass algorithm that'll waggle its finger and make you a kids' channel even if your content isn't for kids(you actually get slapped into under-13 site restrictions if you admit you lied about your age on Neopets even jokingly), so yeah I'd be a little afraid ESPECIALLY if this goes into other websites.

They sadly seem to be doing it often for every single little setback and flack youtube gets. I understand that the content on Youtube is (mostly) made by creators, but there are a lot of people who are using the platform as they should and not creating hateful content, but are punished severely or impacted negatively for things that are REALLY beyond their control.

It kinda makes me wanna avoid youtube. I don't do anything art related on youtube, but my husband and I do Warhammer 40k battle reports and he posts them on youtube. We're small time schmucks not making money at all. Still worries me.

Yup. I would like to say that youtube is shooting itself in the foot...

BUT I am not sure of other video posting alternatives that have the same platform base and globally known name. Perhaps Twitch? For art streaming there is Picarto, but I am not sure. I admit that I am unfamiliar with the impact of COPPA.

Pretty dumb, You make your content for adults, "swearing, or horror(especially horror), nah demonetized think of the children. Now you make your stuff for kids(or some can think its for kids) and nah you cant do that, think of the kids. Youtube kids is a thing you know...this just make youtube nonviable to everyone, except big companies who will never take the hard hit(see so many sexualised music vids). Mixture was competition for twitch and the only competition for youtube I can see is bitchute, but most of the content there is just far-right political videos.

I regularly sub videos that have animated content but this guideline really isn't helping istg

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If the FTC wants to be vague then I played along with them. I labeled everything...and I mean everything I have up for gaming as made for kids including my Resident Evil 7 let's plays because....well screw the system.

There is actually a very interesting and informative video about this kerfluffle:

Essentally...COPPA has been around for a while (since 1998).

Youtube/Google were the ones who fucked up first and the creators are being punished as a result.

Lovely.

Well the biggest issue is creators don't get to decide what content is "made for kids," and YouTube doesn't get to decide, the FTC does.
So just for example, a video discussing how Steven Universe depicts metal illness and abuse is obviously not made for kids... but that video is about a kids' show, it probably has characters from that show in the thumbnail, so the FTC can look at the thumbnail and go "for kids."
So I think they're going to end up with a lot of content marked (not by the creators) as "made for kids" that's full of mature themes and it's going to be another Elsagate.
Also, while it's going to hurt established children's content creators, it's going to make it pretty much impossible to grow a children's channel.

Edit: one more additional prediction, this is probably going to disproportionately affect female creators.

Apparently adults should only like the color grey, the news, and working office jobs.

I'm concerned about what happens on other sites as well. There's only news about how it'll affect YouTube. Kids are on Instagram, FB, etc. too. Some talk about jumping ship to Vimeo, Daily Motion, and Twitch and I've even dabbled in the idea of starting a video sharing site for artists. But since this is a law thing, nowhere's safe.

I'm also a bit iffy on signing petitions. I heard they're generally ignored.

What worries me the most is that since this is a government thing, it might spread across all the internet, including Twitch, Dailymotion, etc. and affect comics app, even of they are tagged mature/ pg13, because, ya know, if it has colorful drawings, it must be for kids

Dailymotion has their head office in Paris, it'll be difficult to get them to comply. They will probably still try.
Youtubers can't gather data and the ftc know this, it's becoming clearer that they are interested in making money and if this doesn't work they'll just find another excuse. Even workers inside the ftc who pointed out that they can't legally do this have been silenced on social media. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually try using sneezing while watching yt as an excuse to be fined.

Yes! This will be awesome for companies like Disney, tho, who can pay the fines without major worries. As you said, they just want the money.

When I saw the news about the changes and how ridiculously harsh they are, my first thought was, "I'd be amazed if Disney + and Netflix, or traditional TV channels didn't make a big push for this behind the scenes."
Because of course, subscription services like theirs want... well, subs! And their main competitor is Youtube, which in a huge number of non English speaking countries is the number 1 video platform by a wide margin, and in English speaking ones is just behind Netflix. How do you defeat Youtube? Make it impossible for creators, or even the platform to profit from children's content there, since Youtube relies on ads, so creators stop making content for that platform, so parents sub to Netflix or go back to oldskool TV.

What I predict will happen is Youtube will start pushing their subscription service more, and commissioning content for their children's platform or striking deals with channels like Cartoon Network etc. Basically adult Youtube will stay more or less the same, but with something more like Netflix attached to it for kids.

Most people love big brands like Disney. YT isn't taking away from that, the difference is price. People who aren't watching tv, do so for 3 main reasons. 1 price, can't afford it, especially multiple channel packages or streaming services. yt is free and has a premium but not needed to watch. I've never had a nexflix account because they don't allow me to see what's available in my country and I know we have a lot of licencing issues. I usually don't get to watch a movie until it shows on tv because we have a small renting window and after you can only buy so if you missed the time between purchase - rent - purchase again you're stuck waiting for it to either be rent-able again or price drops by which time they show it on tv in 2 languages. 2 schedule issues, people want to watch when they want not when they're told to. we have limited replay times if that works at all. I know it's different in other countries. 3. content availability, a lot of the time my fav shows aren't available, sometimes due to licencing issues and when they do pick up again they're seasons apart and not advertised so you didn't know it was airing again. American Shows get cancelled because rating drops in usa despite gaining popularity in the rest of the world. posting on yt means no broadcast fees, which means more money for productions. It's not that I don't think they're meddling, they probably are it's that I don't see it as a good move. Pushing out other creators won't drive more people to watch tv or tv yt channels. It'll just make less people watch because they're not fixing the main problems. More people may be able to watch their favs shows if it's not blocked in their area. But the reason people like yt will just send them looking for it on other platforms thus leading to yt dying out.