YouTube is Removing Videos - Are You Affected?

[KiddieToysReview]

Hey KTR. Sorry to hear about your 2 videos being removed. The last 2 video we made we got music copyright notice to both of them but were cleared just fine. YT is tightening our worlds eh. Just found out about TF being terminated. I was shocked. Really. As Stearman's Toy Review said is it back to toy reviews? I wonder what YT will do to kids video with "Killer Clowns" or "Don't do this at 3AM". I think a suggestion with the post above that when you publish a video, you can click an age restriction tab say ages 9-15 yrs would be helpful. It will filter the video going with the YT Kids App so these 2-5 years old don't get to watch "killer clown" videos. Still..TF gone...It's going to be crazy.

Ye, it's a completely over-the-top action and a cave-in to hate groups poised against anything not fitting their confined world view. I see it being no different to a hypothetical case where the NYT and a few other "influential" media outlets write articles about how killer clowns are a bad influence on kids, then Amazon over-reacting and banning all horror books and dropping Stephen King off the site, just in case 1% of the population don't like something and are vocal about it and god forbid we offend their sensitivities. Don;t get me wrong, TF did have some dodgy videos that should not be up there. Yt could easily follow their own process and strike them, or be polite to one of their largest revenue earners and send a friendly email. I'm sure TF, and most of us, would oblige, I know i would, to a friendly, but stern warning email to remove some content.

Going forward, it's all rainbows and sunshine, literally. No matter what video you make, only have high level "happy' tags and make sure the videos are bright, cheerful and happy. So if you must have a killer clown chase kids, make sure it's a laughing clown mask, and the title is "happy exciting clown has super fun time running after the kids | happy kids family super fun day" and there's lots of laughing and silliness. Don't use any dialog that could potentially be interpreted in any way but the friendliest possible.

But on a serious note, this is the first wave. Get ready for a mother-f*****g tsunami after they tweak the AI to auto-detect "questionable" content. Kids channels will be purged out first and all unapproved content flushed, then they'll roll it out platform wise. I predict game channels will be next hit, and hit hard. The adpocalypse will seem like a walk in the park on a sunny day with the ducks waddling in the lake nearby.

 

[Stearmans Toy Review]

No, they are doing this outside the strike system. It's basically a content purge across the kids vertical to bring it in line with current/updated Community Guidelines. If you check SocialBlade there are many large channels recording dips in views in the tens+ millions, this is the purge. It would not make sense (be fair??) to strike every kids channel this is happening to, since the CG were updated as a result of the adpocalyse. At least give kids channels a chance to reign in their content and bring it in line with the new expectations and CG. As you are aware, almost every kids channel has "bad baby" and "kids steal abc goes to jail" type videos, with these trends being originated by Toy Freaks.[DOUBLEPOST=1510951488,1510949179][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well, it's back to incredibly safe content. Youtube does not seem to distinguish between 1-3 year olds, 4-6 year old, 7-9, etc, etc. What a 9 year old finds funny and ridiculous may be frightening or worrisome for a 2 year old. It's a good question how to continue forwards. I want to make skits for 9-11 year olds, and I think our channel is 9-11 y.o. kid-friendly, but it certainly is not 2-4 y.o. kid friendly. Certainly not 100%, maybe 95% kid friendly for 2-4 year olds. But they are not really our target demographic.

So what to do? How to proceed?

I guess no one knows.. I guess play it safe for now. Make content friendly for everyone? And I'm guessing since we have "bad kids" in almost all our titles now.. that we will have to eliminate that.. even though I don't see Vlad or Ryan getting hit for using "Bad kids" in their titles.

I'm at a total stand still.. we need to film another video today.. but just don't know how to proceed. Maybe we need to #askdarrel.[DOUBLEPOST=1511001482][/DOUBLEPOST]

Going forward, it's all rainbows and sunshine, literally. .

This remind me of Trolls.. all cupcakes and rainbows.. and your right.. that's what its going to have to be. I'm guessing all nerf wars are out too! Ugh!

 

[Crown]

Link: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/youtube-toy-freaks-channel-terminated-1202617834/

I found the comment by the Toy Freaks founder (the father) quite revealing:

_______
In a statement provided to Variety, Toy Freaks channel operator Greg Chism said YouTube informed him “of concerns that my videos were attracting audience members who do not have childrens’ best interests in their hearts.”

Chism continued, “Many YouTube community members expressed similar concerns, and their willingness to reach out to protect my children and all children from exploitation reinforces my faith in the YouTube community. Victoria, Annabelle and I want to thank our supporters as my girls have had the opportunity to develop their creativity and self-confidence over the past few years. Their future is bright. While it is disturbing to me that anyone would find inappropriate pleasure in our video skits, I deeply appreciate YouTube’s concerns for my family and I could not be happier with having had this remarkable experience.”
_______

Reading between the lines, he's saying: "Meh I don't care. I made bank from this anyway. "

 

[clerick]

Great to hear toy freaks is removed, i hope all children exploitation toy channels follow. Kids should not be used like this to make money.

 

[Scapestrato]

I found the comment by the Toy Freaks founder (the father) quite revealing:

_______
In a statement provided to Variety, Toy Freaks channel operator Greg Chism said YouTube informed him “of concerns that my videos were attracting audience members who do not have childrens’ best interests in their hearts.”

Chism continued, “Many YouTube community members expressed similar concerns, and their willingness to reach out to protect my children and all children from exploitation reinforces my faith in the YouTube community. Victoria, Annabelle and I want to thank our supporters as my girls have had the opportunity to develop their creativity and self-confidence over the past few years. Their future is bright. While it is disturbing to me that anyone would find inappropriate pleasure in our video skits, I deeply appreciate YouTube’s concerns for my family and I could not be happier with having had this remarkable experience.”
_______

Reading between the lines, he's saying: "Meh I don't care. I made bank from this anyway. "

Yupp, at the very least he was fully aware to be in a gray area and seems he was expecting the plug being pulled from one moment to the other.

 

[JackJack]

My impression from his statement is that he utterly misunderstands why he is being taken down. Perhaps he had warnings from YT that he did not heed and that's why there was such a strong reaction against his channel. Too bad... they really made some great videos even if there were a few poor choices made as well.

 

[Crown]

Yupp, at the very least he was fully aware to be in a gray area and seems he was expecting the plug being pulled from one moment to the other.

Exactly. His total lack of any fight for his channel is quite revealing. He knew exactly what he was doing.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

even though I don't see Vlad or Ryan getting hit for using "Bad kids" in their titles.

It's just the start. There's going to be a massive cleaning out. But with the chat with our Yt manager (a few days before this happened), she emphasized the intent of the video. What are you trying to accomplish? If the intention is negative emotions, like fear, crying, panic, it's likely not looking too good. If it's wonder, excitement, happiness, education, the future looks bright and sunny. So of course there's going to be a rush now towards happy videos. But will viewers actually watch those? I don't know...

So now in hindsight, that chat and what the managers are instructed to pass onto channels makes a lot of sense; at the time I just thought of it in terms of monetization. But it's actually the overall direction in the kids vertical they want to push looks like.

About Vlad - even though they have bad baby in t/t/d, the intent of the videos is happy. The kids are always smiling (or fake crying), mom's acting stern but funny, the videos elicit a fun and happy emotion, never one of fear or revulsion or shock (that I could see, maybe there are a few, I'm not sure). So I think you can have "bad baby" in t/t/d, but it's the content of the video and the title that must be bright happy rainbows and sunshine. I think it's ridiculous, it's overkill, but that's what our boss and overlord has dictated and made TF a public example of, so we need to fall in line or suffer the consequences. We want to continue on Yt of course, so I have no choice but to fall in line.

Sort of like the Trump presidency ... step out of line of what the overlord dictates and you're fired ... I wonder...

 

[markkaz]

More questions to ponder - what is "appropriate" - who judged this - one man's s**t is another man's treasure.

You're a channel that clearly targets a young demographic, kids. Kids need to be protected. If you don't understand that, then you have no business creating content for kids.

However, I do agree that YouTube should be sending us notifications letting us know when direct changes have been made to our accounts.

I believe that content that YouTube deems questionable should be considered for age-gating. Either 18 or 21 years old.

As to your question, no, I have not had any videos deemed inappropriate.

 

[KiddieToysReview]

You're a channel that clearly targets a young demographic, kids. Kids need to be protected. If you don't understand that, then you have no business creating content for kids.

However, I do agree that YouTube should be sending us notifications letting us know when direct changes have been made to our accounts.

I believe that content that YouTube deems questionable should be considered for age-gating. Either 18 or 21 years old.

As to your question, no, I have not had any videos deemed inappropriate.

Absolutely, and no one is more crazy about the safety of my, and other's children, than myself. You should see me crossing roads, letting the kids off by themselves anywhere, protection in public spaces, etc, etc. As you have been operating on Yt for a number of years, I'm sure you're aware that it is as much an art as a science - we are called 'creators" because we use our imagination to create. "Giant surprise eggs" were a fantastic creation, and I think "bad babies" as a concept was too. The number of views proves that.

So as a creator, just as a script writer for a sitcom or film, I need to know what are the parameters. Yes I know what is kids safe, we have channel 22 running here around the clock with 100% kids shows. But Yt exists to provide something alternative to the shows made by gatekeepers. Take your channel for example, your content is not on mainstream TV (just like giant surprise eggs and bad babies are not), yet Yt provides you an outlet for your creativity. So for us as a kids channel, we have many creative ideas of what to do. Some of the stuff we want to do is not for 2 year olds, our channel is actually more for 8+. But Yt doesn't provide a facility to differentiate kids audiences - right now "kids" encompassed 1 to 15 year olds. The stuff they watch is very different.

Hence my question, as a creator, how do I know what stuff Yt will let me make if my audience is 2 years old, 7 years old, or 13 years old. Where are the guidelines? Older kids, say 12, would enjoy being scared by scary clowns, but 1 year olds would not. But Yt does not let me age gate into brackets. So that means the videos could potentially be deleted as they are not suitable for 2 year olds, even though they are fine for 12 year olds. So what to do? Make a dedicated scary clown channel and fill tags with age groups? Maybe, but that could be viewed as spammy. I don't know..