FTC is considering asking YouTubers to turn off ads!

[Crown]

The FTC is currently investigating YouTube for illegally collecting personal information from children under 13 and FTC officials are reportedly considering one drastic solution to the problem: asking individual channels to turn off advertising on their videos!

According to a new Bloomberg report, FTC Chairman Joseph Simons suggested in a call last week that a settlement from the commission (an investigation is reportedly in its late stages) probably won’t recommend the most dramatic potential solution: that YouTube move all children’s content off its main site and onto the YouTube Kids platform.

Instead, the FTC is consulting with privacy advocates about the feasibility of a solution that would apparently make individual YouTube channels responsible for stopping YouTube as a whole from collecting the personal data of users under 13. (In order to target ads, YouTube collects personal information from all users.) It’s unclear if FTC officials are talking about opening the possibility for all channels manually turning off advertising, or if it’s only thinking about asking channels that feature young creators, or maybe only channels that make content for kids.


Full articles and sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-08/ftc-said-to-ask-about-disabling-youtube-ads-for-kids-privacy

FTC Reportedly Considering Asking YouTubers To Turn Off Ads In The Name Of Child Privacy - Tubefilter

Without officially confirming the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in fact investigating YouTube for illegally collecting personal information from children under 13, FTC officials are reportedly weighing one potentially preposterous solution to the problem: asking individual channels to turn...

www.tubefilter.com

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More regulation and interference! I'm all for the protection of minors but all this seems completely OTT!

Thoughts?

 

[UKHypnotist]

I agree with you, Crown; it's nearly as bad as the "Big Brother move" the UK gov did a year ago, but not quite.

 

[Redterrors]

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today. Both Democrats and Republicans finally agree on something, Youtube needs to fix kids content. I operate a kids channel with almost 200 million views and I also agree that Youtube needs to fix the problem. I fully support taking all ads off kids content. Only then will all the parents exploiting kids leave the platform. Many people will disagree with me, but people like the Kaji parents (Ryantoysreview) need to be held accountable for their actions. The original channels that made the kids content for fun with no expectation for money will carry on the Youtube kids popularity. Take the money incentive away and the problem creators disappear. It is quite a simple fix.

 

[zerocache]

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today. Both Democrats and Republicans finally agree on something, Youtube needs to fix kids content. I operate a kids channel with almost 200 million views and I also agree that Youtube needs to fix the problem. I fully support taking all ads off kids content. Only then will all the parents exploiting kids leave the platform. Many people will disagree with me, but people like the Kaji parents (Ryantoysreview) need to be held accountable for their actions. The original channels that made the kids content for fun with no expectation for money will carry on the Youtube kids popularity. Take the money incentive away and the problem creators disappear. It is quite a simple fix.

Wait. How are Ryan's parents guilty of exploiting him? Did they give him up for adoption and left him with nothing? Did they run away with the money? Is there any evidence of him not wanting to do it and his mother (or father) berating him?

Let's face it... what they are truly guilty of is taking advantage of what inherently is a broken system, and kudos to them. YT should have seen this coming and best of luck to them on figuring this one out.

 

[markkaz]

Parents should be supervising their kids.

If they put all content that they deem to be 'kids content' on the YouTube Kids App, then give creators the option to only allow their videos to be shown to viewers who are YouTube Premium (Red) subscribers. This way, at least creators get something rather than all of our content getting watched basically for free.

 

[KatyAdelson]

I think that's kind of intense. Are they referring to the survey-like ads where they ask you a question? That's there only thing I can really think about that's a bit different from other platforms.... If that's the problem, I'd imagine it'd be easy to turn those off, so there's probably a lot more going on behind the scenes with Google collecting data.... :/

 

[Bruman]

I think it's ridiculous that the solution to youtube doing something illegal is to take away from the content creators. If this were to go into effect you can
bet your biscuit there will be significantly less content creators for kids (which may be a good thing as RedTerrors mentioned) as well as shake the foundation
of trust for youtube that normal content creators have, however shaky that foundation already is. I don't know much in the area of collecting personal data,
is there not a solution that youtube can fix on its personal end that wouldn't affect channel creators?

 

[Redterrors]

There are certain advertisements that are COPPA compliant. The kids app has COPPA compliant ads; however you will rarely if ever see an ad on the kids app because well advertisers are not really interested in COPPA compliant ads unless it is Christmas. I understand it is drastic, but the only solution is to turn off ads for kids channels and purge the system leaving behind the good actors. Google needs to know that there are plenty of us content creators that will keep going without making money because well that is why we joined Youtube to begin with. The publicity and success of channels like Ryantoysreviews in 2015 ruined it all for kids content. You have people that quit their jobs and rode this money train. We profited significantly as well, but I was smart enough to realize that eventually this broken system could not last. I refused to follow the algorithm that required churning out flat out ridiculous content.

 

[dv2000]

No one will be making expensive animation cartoons for free including big brands like peppapig, Marsha and the bear. There are ads on tv right before kid cartoons. Is it ok? I guess not

 

[Crown]

No one will be making expensive animation cartoons for free including big brands like peppapig, Marsha and the bear. There are ads on tv right before kid cartoons. Is it ok? I guess not

If I understand correctly, the problem isn't with the ads themselves. The issue seems to be the way YouTube's ad platform uses cookies etc to track users and to collect personal info about them in order to target them with specific ads. That doesn't happen on TV.