Sooooooooooooooooooo....

This came up. I've been waiting and watching, which is why I haven't given any news on this as of late. I've been waiting and watching for more facts.

I'll give you the cliff's notes variation if you don't care to watch an entire video. Basically, breaking one of the guidelines won't bring the long arm of the law down upon you, you're not violating COPPA. You have to outright break multiple laws for this to take effect. The FTC outright acknowledges this in fact. They're drawing a line between for Kids and Family Friendly. If it's traditionally children's it doesn't mean it's always for children. This whole thing bothered me right from the start, actually. How did the FTC expect to enforce American laws on non-American soil? It was always so vague.

I was always wondering: "If I could figure this out in five minutes how couldn't the FTC?" Guess now we know. I can only guess at what happened, the FTC maybe threatened Youtube or something. In any event, we can now all breathe a bit easier now.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Marcthelightspark2004]

All this shit, all this terror, for nothing. I feel both relieved, and angry.

I'm gonna go keep writing my Tales from the Black Freighter Crossover.

[Jade Dawn]

In other words, it isn't a censorship apocalypse like everyone's been making it out to be.

[Matthew Penn]

My strategy always work

Go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.

[Super Trampoline]

5160090
Good strategy

[BlueCuddlePonyGhost]

Yeah. I just found that out yesterday too. It also doesn't help that YouTube knew COPPA let users make videos that are targeting all ages regardless of having kid content in the video. In other words, YouTube knew a general audience was allowed, but they didn't give it to creators.

[Jakub the Reshiram]

Hurrrrray

[Black_Knight]

Well this will calm some minds, though some are more worry about Youtube's bots enforcing the COPPA regulations since their machine learning is deeply flawed.

[The Bricklayer]

5160174
It's really a devil you know thing. The bots are needed, given there's millions of videos to comb through, more than a group of people could ever do. But... um.... yeah.

Can we just sit back and appreciate the fact that somehow one of the bots learned to be homophobic? Like, if, you're going to fuck it up, might as well leave everyone wondering how you did it.

[Fallen Knight]

Reading the actual guidelines and the blog post of the FTC mentioned by the video, it seems that MLP related stuff (or cartoons and videogames in general) are pretty much screwed. Not in the "will get a fine" department now, but in the "you have to mark it for children because we(youtube) says so and will delete you if you dont" what means goodbye 80+% of your earnings as no targeted ads will be able to play on your channel/videos. (and im told thats the majority of ad revenue by some big channels who already did COPPA videos).

Keep in mind its not you who determines if what you did was for "everyone" or "targeted to kids".

The Rule sets out additional factors the FTC will consider in determining whether your content is child-directed:

• the subject matter,
• visual content,
• the use of animated characters or child-oriented activities and incentives,
• the kind of music or other audio content,
• the age of models,
• the presence of child celebrities or celebrities who appeal to children,
• language or other characteristics of the site,
• whether advertising that promotes or appears on the site is directed to children, and
• competent and reliable empirical evidence about the age of the audience.

HOW COPPA APPLIES TO CHANNEL OWNERS

So how does COPPA apply to channel owners who upload their content to YouTube or another third-party platform? COPPA applies in the same way it would if the channel owner had its own website or app. If a channel owner uploads content to a platform like YouTube, the channel might meet the definition of a “website or online service” covered by COPPA, depending on the nature of the content and the information collected. If the content is directed to children and if the channel owner, or someone on its behalf (for example, an ad network), collects personal information from viewers of that content (for example, through a persistent identifier that tracks a user to serve interest-based ads), the channel is covered by COPPA. Once COPPA applies, the operator must provide notice, obtain verifiable parental consent, and meet COPPA’s other requirements. For information on how to comply with COPPA, please visit the FTC’s COPPA page for our Six-Step Compliance Plan for Your Business.

[Black_Knight]

5160237
That reminds me of an AI from either Google or Microsoft who turned, after a week being online, into a Nazi.

[The Bricklayer]

5160409
Yep, Tay-AI.

[The Bricklayer]

5160372
Not really, as the FTC is actually smart enough to determine what is family-friendly and what's for kids specifically. TJOmega went into details about this, and really he can explain it better than I can.

We all need to just calm down, and take a few deep breaths. If it's traditionally children's it doesn't mean it's always for children. Also...

[Jade Dawn]

Well, it's December 11th now. One day after the date Coppa was supposed to start or something.

I'm not hearing about any mass crackdowns, and my channel's still up, so hopefully this means we really are in the clear.

[The Bricklayer]

5167759
B-But that's what the man wants you to think! How would we know if any big changes happened to Youtube if all the evidence is gone?

But legit serious, in hindsight I think we were all being a bit silly, really. The law would been next to impossible to enforce, and I don't think YouTube is stupid enough to commit basically what's suicide. They've been around for a decade, I think by now they know what they're doing.

[Jade Dawn]

5168360
Tell that to the people who started the #YouTubeIsOverParty a day ago...

[The Bricklayer]

5168365
...ah, that. I don't follow Twitter, really, so for obvious reasons I would have missed that. I'm going to take a swing at this, and guess this is just teething troubles, from the actual news sources I do follow. (Since when has Twitter ever counted as a reliable news source?) I read one article, and it says, I quote directly:

...Many believe the changes are YouTube’s attempt at rectifying the backlash it received in June for failing to ban right-wing YouTuber Steven Crowder, who repeatedly targeted openly gay journalist Carlos Maza in his videos. The site did end up suspending Crowder’s ability to make money off his channel, which has over 4.2 million subscribers....

It's entirely possible this is Youtube's intent, and it's just so bollocked up as the Brits say because it's still early days yet.