Thoughts on the adpocalypse 2020?

Jungle Explorer

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Correct me if I'm wrong but what happens if I mark my whole channel as kid friendly? Will I be fined if the FTC finds a video they think isn't kid friendly? The only thing the FTC chairman said was the fines would be if they found a video to be kid friendly when you marked it as not for kids doesn't mention the other way around. I don't curse in my videos and make good clean comedy.
As I understand it. The fine is for making videos that target children but are marked as not targeting children.
wether it’s acceptable for children isn’t what the fine is for...
so if you mark them as targeting children you avoid the risk of fine (as I understand it) however there will be other consequences: fewer ads, no comments, no end screen links, YouTube won’t recommend your video.
Here is the issue guys. It has nothing to do with WHY you made the video or WHO your target audience is. The rule applies to all content that is "Attractive or Appealing" to kids up to the age of 13 years old. The only question you have to ask yourself is,

"Will kids up to the age of 13 be attracted to my video (content)?"

If the answer to the above question is, YES!, then you had better mark that video as kid's content. This is not something you want to mess with guys. A single mistake can cost you a $42,530 fine per video. There is no video that makes enough money to make it worth taking a risk of that kind of fine to keep it marked as "Not for kids".

But there is a another problem. Marking videos as For Kids, that is not for kids, could also get you in trouble. Here is why. If you mark a video that is not for kids, as being for kids, YT will now start recommending that video on YouTube kids. So kids will start seeing it in their suggested videos. If that video contains "Objectionable Content" parents are going to be infuriated that this kind of content is on YouTube Kids, and report your channel. This could get your video banned, and if it happens enough, your channel deleted.

Guys, there are no CLEAR answers as to what to do. Not even lawyers can help you with this one because nothing is clear about anything. It's a "You're screwed if you do, and you're screwed if you don't" situation. The best you can do is try to just be honest with yourself and do your best.

At the end of the day, the only people that are serious danger are channels that make "Family Friendly" content. People that make mature content and those that make kids content have a clear path to follow, but people that make Family Friendly content are really screwed here, and YouTube has become a very dangerous place for them.
 

MarkRodriguez2012

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Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're honest and set your channel as not for kids, it only matters what the FTC thinks. If you talk about Rick and Morty and cuss a lot, you can in good faith say your channel is not for kids. But the FTC can see your channel and decide 'well it got cartoons on it' and think your channel is for kids. Then you get fined because they think that you purposely set a kids channel to a not for kids to get ads.
 

Vital Sine

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Does anyone know how young adult/teen-directed education channels might be affected by this? My channel is about math, high school level and above. For now all my videos are high school level, but I don't see why a middle schooler a little ahead of his class couldn't stumble upon these videos and find them interesting. My channel is definitely directed towards 14-18, and adults taking math early in college. I currently have it marked as "not for kids," and definitely my intended audience is not under 13. But the content is really for everyone/anyone who wants to learn, which could or could not include kids. Does that mean I have to mark it as "made for kids," just because 'some' kids might/probably will like it but most of my audience is 14+? Or should I take down all videos covering 9th/10th/11th grade math and stick to last yr of high school and college concepts? That's not really what I want to do with my channel though, as I want to cover a bit of everything from high school and up (plus I haven't learned much college math yet, so it could take some time before I have anything to offer there, meaning I'd have to put my channel on hold for a while). In the end, I just don't want to get fined. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
 

Jungle Explorer

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Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're honest and set your channel as not for kids, it only matters what the FTC thinks. If you talk about Rick and Morty and cuss a lot, you can in good faith say your channel is not for kids. But the FTC can see your channel and decide 'well it got cartoons on it' and think your channel is for kids. Then you get fined because they think that you purposely set a kids channel to a not for kids to get ads.
Incorrect. If you cuss in a video, YouTube's algorithm will mark it as "Not For Kids" for you. If you try to mark it as "For Kids" they will reverse your choice. At this point, you are off the hook, because you are not allowed to mark videos with vulgar language as being "For Kids". YT's systems AI is extremely advanced and not only analyses the speech and words in your videos but also has object recognition. If you want to see a demonstration of how this works, just go to your Google Photos account (if you have one and use it to backup photos too). Type the name of any object in the search bar, such as "Table". The results will show you every picture in your archive that has a table in it. I have over half a million photos backed up to Google Photos and use this system all the time to find my own content.

YT's system has the same capability and it assesses everything in your videos (trees, tables, bike, cup, dog, car, etc, etc, etc,) and creates a secret set of tags to better categories your video in the directory. So, it is no problem for their system to know that you are CUSSING in your video, and immediately mark it as "Not for kids". If they start showing videos with cussing in them to kids, they are in a lot more trouble then they are now, so they are not going to let that happen.
 

Jungle Explorer

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Does anyone know how young adult/teen-directed education channels might be affected by this? My channel is about math, high school level and above. For now all my videos are high school level, but I don't see why a middle schooler a little ahead of his class couldn't stumble upon these videos and find them interesting. My channel is definitely directed towards 14-18, and adults taking math early in college. I currently have it marked as "not for kids," and definitely my intended audience is not under 13. But the content is really for everyone/anyone who wants to learn, which could or could not include kids. Does that mean I have to mark it as "made for kids," just because 'some' kids might/probably will like it but most of my audience is 14+? Or should I take down all videos covering 9th/10th/11th grade math and stick to last yr of high school and college concepts? That's not really what I want to do with my channel though, as I want to cover a bit of everything from high school and up (plus I haven't learned much college math yet, so it could take some time before I have anything to offer there, meaning I'd have to put my channel on hold for a while). In the end, I just don't want to get fined. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
Quoted from my post earlier in this thread.

"
Here is the issue guys. It has nothing to do with WHY you made the video or WHO your target audience is. The rule applies to all content that is "Attractive or Appealing" to kids up to the age of 13 years old. The only question you have to ask yourself is,

"Will kids up to the age of 13 be attracted to my video (content)?"

If the answer to the above question is, YES!, then you had better mark that video as kid's content. This is not something you want to mess with guys. A single mistake can cost you a $42,530 fine per video. There is no video that makes enough money to make it worth taking a risk of that kind of fine to keep it marked as "Not for kids".

But there is another problem. Marking videos as For Kids, that is not for kids, could also get you in trouble. Here is why. If you mark a video that is not for kids, as being for kids, YT will now start recommending that video on YouTube kids. So kids will start seeing it in their suggested videos. If that video contains "Objectionable Content" parents are going to be infuriated that this kind of content is on YouTube Kids, and report your channel. This could get your video banned, and if it happens enough, your channel deleted.

Guys, there are no CLEAR answers as to what to do. Not even lawyers can help you with this one because nothing is clear about anything. It's a "You're screwed if you do, and you're screwed if you don't" situation. The best you can do is try to just be honest with yourself and do your best.

At the end of the day, the only people that are serious danger are channels that make "Family Friendly" content. People that make mature content and those that make kids content have a clear path to follow, but people that make Family Friendly content are really screwed here, and YouTube has become a very dangerous place for them. "
 

MarkRodriguez2012

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Incorrect. If you cuss in a video, YouTube's algorithm will mark it as "Not For Kids" for you. If you try to mark it as "For Kids" they will reverse your choice. At this point, you are off the hook, because you are not allowed to mark videos with vulgar language as being "For Kids". YT's systems AI is extremely advanced and not only analyses the speech and words in your videos but also has object recognition. If you want to see a demonstration of how this works, just go to your Google Photos account (if you have one and use it to backup photos too). Type the name of any object in the search bar, such as "Table". The results will show you every picture in your archive that has a table in it. I have over half a million photos backed up to Google Photos and use this system all the time to find my own content.

YT's system has the same capability and it assesses everything in your videos (trees, tables, bike, cup, dog, car, etc, etc, etc,) and creates a secret set of tags to better categories your video in the directory. So, it is no problem for their system to know that you are CUSSING in your video, and immediately mark it as "Not for kids". If they start showing videos with cussing in them to kids, they are in a lot more trouble then they are now, so they are not going to let that happen.
But what if the video is about the ninja turtles and I cuss in it. Will the algorithm use the cussing to override the fact that kids might want to watch videos about the ninja turtles?
 

atomicgirl24

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In reading the controversy about all of this, it really feels to me as if people are completely overthinking everything, thanks to YouTubers spreading FUD.

The Adpocalypse is specifically targeting content that is 100% targeted towards children and children only, not content that has some crossover appeal towards kids or can be watched by general audiences.

For example, if you do animation and you mean everyone to enjoy it, then it wouldn't be for kids. But if you're doing animation that is geared exclusively towards kids (like, for example, a Dora the Explorer or Magic School Bus kind of channel), then it's considered as kid content.

Another example: I have a channel completely based around The Sims. Kids play The Sims and the graphics are certainly appealing to them. But the game was rated T for Teen and most people who play the game are teens and young adults, anyway. So I've marked my channel as not for kids.

The only area where you could potentially run into problems is if you decide to do "adult" content using famous kids characters (Elsa, The Little Mermaid, Elmo the Monster) or is deliberately designed to look like something kids would like (for example, animation that looks like something out of a storybook). In this case, you'd run afoul of The Powers That Be, because though your content has sexual references and profanity, you're using characters that are exclusively geared towards kids.
 

markkaz

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But what if the video is about the ninja turtles and I cuss in it. Will the algorithm use the cussing to override the fact that kids might want to watch videos about the ninja turtles?
My guess is that YT will set up code and videos with cussing will not be designated as 'made for kids'. That means that if YT suspects that a kid is watching, a TMNT video with vulgar language will not be recommended to them.
 

Jungle Explorer

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But what if the video is about the ninja turtles and I cuss in it. Will the algorithm use the cussing to override the fact that kids might want to watch videos about the ninja turtles?
Absolutely! There are different forces at play here. There several content rating systems that have long governed what kind of content is suitable for what ages. Virtually all content everywhere is expected or required to adhere to these guidelines. Failing to do so, could land YT in court being sued by one of several child advocacies and watchdog groups. I don't care if you made a Telli Tubbies cartoon, if you cuss in it, it will be marked as non-children's content. The kicker here is that, the FTC may see this as an attempt to game the system, by producing content that is CLEARY targeted directly at kids, but trying to keep it on the main YT platform by saying cuss words in it in order to earn more money. I can guarantee that if they catch anyone doing this, they will be made an example of.

Like I said. Just be honest with your self and stop trying to find a loophole in the system. Listen to me, money for kid's content will come back. It is YT's cash cow, and they are not going to give it up. It will take a while, but the money will come back for kid's content. It is just the simple law of "Supply and Demand". YT can still put all the ads they want on kid's content, they just cannot be Targeted ads. But Contextual ads are no problem. Once the advertisers come to grips that they cannot use targeted ads, they will renegotiate for ads on kid's space for contextual ads.

Just sit back and cover your butt for the moment. Wait the storm out. Blues skies will come back.
 

offbeatbryce

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Absolutely! There are different forces at play here. There several content rating systems that have long governed what kind of content is suitable for what ages. Virtually all content everywhere is expected or required to adhere to these guidelines. Failing to do so, could land YT in court being sued by one of several child advocacies and watchdog groups. I don't care if you made a Telli Tubbies cartoon, if you cuss in it, it will be marked as non-children's content. The kicker here is that, the FTC may see this as an attempt to game the system, by producing content that is CLEARY targeted directly at kids, but trying to keep it on the main YT platform by saying cuss words in it in order to earn more money. I can guarantee that if they catch anyone doing this, they will be made an example of.

Like I said. Just be honest with your self and stop trying to find a loophole in the system. Listen to me, money for kid's content will come back. It is YT's cash cow, and they are not going to give it up. It will take a while, but the money will come back for kid's content. It is just the simple law of "Supply and Demand". YT can still put all the ads they want on kid's content, they just cannot be Targeted ads. But Contextual ads are no problem. Once the advertisers come to grips that they cannot use targeted ads, they will renegotiate for ads on kid's space for contextual ads.

Just sit back and cover your butt for the moment. Wait the storm out. Blues skies will come back.
So lets say for example this situation. Miley Cyrus was known for good girl image for kids. Then went and danced sexually naked on a wrecking ball. etc I know tons of parents who still think she's okay for kids. In most instances I'd say she isn't but then she does lots for kids and sometimes will have family friendly content. If I make a video talking about Miley Cyrus or some other pop star what is that geared towards when one celebrity can be for kids one day and not the next?