Is my channel safe from the coming COPPA crackdown in January?

Jungle Explorer

Jungle Explorer

I Love YTtalk
So, after watching several videos on the subject, it is clear that it is now becoming dangerous to be a YouTube creator. It is not about how much money you might lose, but how much money it will cost you. The FTC said it will fine us creators up to 42 THOUSAND dollars for EACH video that they determine is aimed at kids and has personalized ads on it. The FTC director laughingly referred to YT creators as "Fish in a Barrel" that the FTC can shoot at will and said that the FTC "IS COMING AFTER US".

The whole question now hinges on the definition of a single term. This term is "Child-Directed". The problem is that explanation for what is "Child-Directed" content is very vague and no one really has a clear understanding of what it is. So that leaves us creators with once again no idea what to do. Maybe YouTubes chickens are coming home to roost for having such vague and ambiguous rules and guidelines themselves (that I have been complaining about for years), but it is us creators that are the ones that are at real risk.

So the question is for us creators, is our content "Child-Directed". I know that my content is absolutely not. The below 365-day graph shows that 0.0% of my viewers are below 17 years of age.


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But the real question is, will this be enough to convince the FTC if they come knocking on my door saying that I am targeting kids?
 
Hard to say without seeing the channel, this statistic doesn't tell everything. As far as whos getting nuked, can't really say for sure till it all starts in a few months. As an animator i'll be sad if this nukes all animation period since kids like to watch animation regardless of adult subject.
 
markkaz said:
Your demographics won't be accurate because kids watch videos under the parent's accounts.
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So, the question is, who is safe? If the answer is, "There is no way to tell" then the next question is, "Who then is willing to risk a 42K per video fine by the FTC in order to remain monetized? I know I am not. A 42K fine would destroy my life. I am demonetizing all my videos on December 31st. Without monetization, I have no incentive to keep producing content, so this effectively is killing my channel. How many other creators will do the same?

I believe this is the end of YouTube as a platform for the small creator, and eventually possibly all content creation by small creators everywhere. The FTC is now coming after the little guy directly and requiring them to comply with the same regulation as huge Hollywood production companies. It is the end of the little guy. There is no room for us anymore. You are either big, or you can't play the game.
 
Jungle Explorer said:
So, the question is, who is safe? If the answer is, "There is no way to tell" then the next question is, "Who then is willing to risk a 42K per video fine by the FTC in order to remain monetized? I know I am not. A 42K fine would destroy my life. I am demonetizing all my videos on December 31st. Without monetization, I have no incentive to keep producing content, so this effectively is killing my channel. How many other creators will do the same?

I believe this is the end of YouTube as a platform for the small creator, and eventually possibly all content creation by small creators everywhere. The FTC is now coming after the little guy directly and requiring them to comply with the same regulation as huge Hollywood production companies. It is the end of the little guy. There is no room for us anymore. You are either big, or you can't play the game.
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You only need to turn off personalized ads. Not your whole monetization. Thats is if your content is targeted at kids
 
hasanpasir88 said:
You only need to turn off personalized ads. Not your whole monetization. Thats is if your content is targeted at kids
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My content is outdoor sports and DIY related. But here is the deal, you are wrong that the content must be "TARGETED" at kids. The term "Child-directed content" used by the FTC is extremely vague and means what the FTC says it means, not common sense. It does not matter if you intend your content for kids, it only matters if the FTC determines if your content is attractive to kids.

Here is the huge problem. The FTC is going after "User Created Content". They want to assure that no targeted ads get shown on any "User Created Content" that children are watching. The fine is $42K per each piece of content if THEY decide that kids are watching your videos and targeted ads are shown on them. I can't afford that. A fine of 42K would destroy my life. I can't take the risk of gambling my life away for the smidgen of money I make from monetization. I don't believe 99% of Youtubers could handle this kind fo legal fight and fine. Just the legal cost to fight it alone would be more than most creators can handle. And for what? Youtube ad revenue? Are you kidding? Unless you are making millions, you are going to demonetize rather than take that risk. Even we can keep non-targeted based ads, that represent less than 1% of our ad total revenue earnings. So removing Interest-based ads is effectively the same thing as demonetizing.

The bottom line is this is an all-out FTC attack on USER created content, or "The Little Guy". Big companies have the resources to fight and pay huge fines, but us little guys cannot. So the effect of this new law will be to turn YouTube into another Netflix where only big outfits with brand deals are making content. Say small-time user-created content everywhere on the internet that allows monetization. The government is about to squash the little guy and make this a big dog game only.
 
Jungle Explorer said:
My content is outdoor sports and DIY related. But here is the deal, you are wrong that the content must be "TARGETED" at kids. The term "Child-directed content" used by the FTC is extremely vague and means what the FTC says it means, not common sense. It does not matter if you intend your content for kids, it only matters if the FTC determines if your content is attractive to kids.

Here is the huge problem. The FTC is going after "User Created Content". They want to assure that no targeted ads get shown on any "User Created Content" that children are watching. The fine is $42K per each piece of content if THEY decide that kids are watching your videos and targeted ads are shown on them. I can't afford that. A fine of 42K would destroy my life. I can't take the risk of gambling my life away for the smidgen of money I make from monetization. I don't believe 99% of Youtubers could handle this kind fo legal fight and fine. Just the legal cost to fight it alone would be more than most creators can handle. And for what? Youtube ad revenue? Are you kidding? Unless you are making millions, you are going to demonetize rather than take that risk. Even we can keep non-targeted based ads, that represent less than 1% of our ad total revenue earnings. So removing Interest-based ads is effectively the same thing as demonetizing.

The bottom line is this is an all-out FTC attack on USER created content, or "The Little Guy". Big companies have the resources to fight and pay huge fines, but us little guys cannot. So the effect of this new law will be to turn YouTube into another Netflix where only big outfits with brand deals are making content. Say small-time user-created content everywhere on the internet that allows monetization. The government is about to squash the little guy and make this a big dog game only.
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Non personalized ads is not only 1%. Try to check in your google adsense you can see how much % is it. If you are concerned just turn off personalized ads when they start enforcing it and wait and see what channel got hit. And when the storm has slowed down if your channel is safe just turn it back on.

And yes no channel can handle 42k fine per video.
 
hasanpasir88 said:
Non personalized ads is not only 1%. Try to check in your google adsense you can see how much % is it. If you are concerned just turn off personalized ads when they start enforcing it and wait and see what channel got hit. And when the storm has slowed down if your channel is safe just turn it back on.

And yes no channel can handle 42k fine per video.
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Of course, this is what all creators will have to do. Which means that it will there no longer be any incentive for small channels without brand deals to create more content. But this is not going to get better with time. It is going to massively worse because the end goal is control. I believe that Hollywood is behind this big time. "User Created Content" (which is what the FTC said they were going after), is a huge threat to big media creation companies. Hollywood is struggling to survive because people would rather watch User Created Content for free on YouTube than pay $12 dollars to go to a theater where they have to pay $6 for a small bottle of water. The Big guys of media creation want to kill off all small user-created content. This COPPA thing has NOTHING!!! to do with protecting children. It is all about squashing the little guys and making this a big dog game only.
 
Jungle, my opinion (and it is only that) on your channel focus is that you are probably ok. There are many who are deeper into the kids niche than you are, but your concern for the matter is definitely greatly appreciated by those in the niche.
 
ilikeswords64 said:
Jungle, my opinion (and it is only that) on your channel focus is that you are probably ok. There are many who are deeper into the kids niche than you are, but your concern for the matter is definitely greatly appreciated by those in the niche.
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That is exactly my point. No one can say for certain that ANY content is safe, and being wrong means that you might face a $42,000 per video fine. That is not something that any small YouTuber cand risk. That is my point. There are a lot of opinions out there, but nobody knows anything for sure.

Here is what concerns me. My content is most definitely not targeted towards kids. People under 17 do not even appear in my analytics. But I know something personally. I have a three-year-old grandson that watches my hunting and fishing videos DAILY and cries when he is told he has to stop watching them. He LOVES them! Now maybe it is his love of his grandpa, or maybe it is that he has grown up around fishing and hunting, but you know what, there are a lot other kids like him out there that grew up in outdoorsy families. My hunting and fishing video are exciting. They are not the boring old videos like the Phil Dance Fishing show. How many kids like my grandson might be watching my videos on their parent's account?

My point is, there is too much uncertainty here to take a risk. But if I am not willing to take the risk, my channel is done. This is utterly wrong. To face life-destroying fines, because of ads that Google is showing on my videos (not me) is insanely unjust and evil. It would the same thing as punishing the road paver because bank robbers used it to rob a bank. The FTC is going after the content creators because Google Brain uses human behavior learning algorithms to deliver targeted ads. INSANITY! Content creators have nothing to do with Google and how it delivers ads.
 
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