YOUTUBE RULES RESTRICT CONTENT CREATORS

Graphic by Eli Rankin | The Advocate

On Dec. 31, people were pouring their glasses to toast to the arrival of a new decade, but YouTube content creators were probably filling their glasses for a less celebratory reason.

In the latter half of 2019, YouTube announced that major changes were coming to its site on Jan. 1 to comply with federal legislation that was put forth by the Federal Trade Commission back in 1998. The bill, named the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), was originally enacted during the rise of mainstream home internet usage in order to protect children, under the age of 13, from having their data collected by “websites or online services directed to children.”

This act is the reason why online games, social networks, and services require users to be above a certain age in order to create an account with them.

However, most of us who grew up since the late ’90s probably remember subtracting a few numbers from our birth year to log onto whatever online fad everyone was into at the time. The takeaway is this: Kids love the internet, for better or worse. And, with a website like YouTube, no account is needed to access its countless number of videos of varying subjects and intended audiences.

Originally, YouTube drew people in by offering money to create videos for the site, appealing to the new generation by touting a shortcut to celebrity. Another way YouTube held its audience’s attention was by collecting data from their devices (namely, previously watched videos) to keep the recommended video feed relevant to those viewers’ interests. This feature is on by default, and, even with an account, can’t be deactivated.

So, when it comes to gathering information from minors using the site, YouTube is in a rather precarious situation. Last year, YouTube was found to be directly violating COPPA by collecting minors’ information and sending it to advertisers, and a settlement was levied against YouTube and Google for $170 million.

This is where the wound begins to fester.

Over the course of the last decade, YouTube made repeated decisions at the expense of their content creators to make the site more advertiser-friendly. YouTubers can no longer say certain words or cover certain topics without risking demonetization. YouTubers also have to struggle against changes that introduced an unforgiving “strike” system for violating the terms and services (that are easily abusable) and tightened the grip of copyright laws on the website. Many creators now rely on secondary income sources to continue producing content for the platform that lured them in with promises of a steady paycheck.

Now it appears that, yet again, YouTube has passed the consequences of its sins onto the breaking backs of its content creators. To comply with COPPA, individual creators now have to sift through all their videos and mark them as being “intended for kids” or not. However, COPPA’s language is extremely vague, and reading it can lead anyone to conclude that almost all content could be considered as targeting children. This leaves individual YouTubers to play a 50/50 game with the FTC, with stakes of an up-to-$42,000 fine, with a platform that promised them support that’s nowhere in sight whenever they upload a video. 

Another impending blow is the proposed update to COPPA (which renames it “PROTECT Kids Act”), broadening its scope without fixing any of the legislation’s massive problems.

One new change that has creators in a frenzy is a raise in the protected age, from 13 to 16. This would essentially render YouTube invalid as a platform because the site’s user base largely consists of teens. If a video is labeled as “made for kids,” then the video loses comments, likes, 90% of its ad revenue, and the ability to have recommendations (as well as be recommended).

These changes heavily stunt YouTube channels by minimizing ad revenue and silencing most avenues of interacting with viewers and receiving feedback. Reading through YouTube comment sections that still exist, I repeatedly found this opinion: Nobody supports content that preys upon minors, but they are against the restriction of free speech and exchange of information.

YouTube has been controversial since its inception, and the new COPPA updates feel like a thinly veiled attack against YouTube by outside special interests.

And, for now, YouTuber content creators will have to learn to tap dance on a tightrope, seeking to entertain the masses while avoiding violating an out-of-touch bill or YouTube’s increasingly constricting terms of service.

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