Massive drop in views on kid channels

MB1984 said:
Have any of you read the public comment from Congressman Andy Biggs? It expresses many of the concerns most people have with COPPA. (Download the 2nd PDF from the link below).

Regulations.gov

www.regulations.gov www.regulations.gov
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Thanks for sharing. Mr. Biggs has his own Youtube channel and sits on the subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. This is really good for Youtube creators. Having a member of the body that enacts the law explaining to the regulatory body the intent is very powerful.

Unfortunately two of his recommendations are pretty much precluded by the US District Court Judge's permanent injunction.

3. Delay enforcement against creators until the FTC concludes its review of COPPA.
4. Allow parents to use YouTube Kids or YouTube Main, without forcing creators to tum off personalized ads when parents choose to use YouTube Main

The FTC could follow number 3 and delay action against creators, but Youtube's system changes will still destroy the kids niche. The only benefit to this would be creators that intentionally mislabel content. This is not a solution, it is a band-aid fix that creates winners and losers. Youtube could implement some changes that still complies with the injunction like obtaining parental consent through email, but Youtube has done absolutely nothing with this option. You simply can't rely on Susan to do anything here.

The best option here may be to push attorneys for the FTC and Youtube to work out a new agreement and then motion the court to modify the permanent injunction through a new stipulated order. Child advocacy groups will push back strong if they get wind of this happening, but although I support their intent, they really just don't know what they are talking about here. They will get significant press because mainstream media loves to attack Youtube because they have been hit hard with Google controlling most advertising.
 
This law in no way eliminates the tracking of minors so I am really confused of its point at all. If someone like DanTDM says he does not create videos with the intention of targeting kids, he then has all his comments, notifications, community posts and play lists active. Well that is great but now let's say 2 million kids under the age of 13 (which is quite possible based on his audience) watches his videos, that is 2 million kids under 13 that they will be tracking and because he claims his videos are not made directly for kids, it's all good then to track away at those minors? Now times that by all the huge YouTubers who have millions and millions of viewers who are probably under the age of 13 and what exactly is this law protecting when it comes to tracking? Absolutely nothing! Kids under 13 will still be tracked in the millions, just not on certain videos. This law is only hurting creators who are creating kids content while YouTube will still be tracking kids under 13 in high numbers. There will still be millions of kids under the age of 13 commenting on videos not made directly for kids. They will still be getting all their notifications from their favorite gaming or reaction channels or whatever other popular channels they watch who will claim their content is not made with the intention of targeting kids. Remember, the law says it does not matter if your audience has kids watching as long as you are not creating your content strictly targeting them.

Did anyone think of this logically and how they are not actually accomplishing the exact thing they are trying to accomplish?
 
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Your assessment of the situation is accurate. The world is filled with idiots with the best intentions. What’s different here is the fact that these idiots have killed my full time career- one I’ve been focusing on and honing for five years.
 
eric3316 said:
This law in no way eliminates the tracking of minors so I am really confused of its point at all. If someone like DanTDM says he does not create videos with the intention of targeting kids, he then has all his comments, notifications, community posts and play lists active. Well that is great but now let's say 2 million kids under the age of 13 (which is quite possible based on his audience) watches his videos, that is 2 million kids under 13 that they will be tracking and because he claims his videos are not made directly for kids, it's all good then to track away at those minors? Now times that by all the huge YouTubers who have millions and millions of viewers who are probably under the age of 13 and what exactly is this law protecting when it comes to tracking? Absolutely nothing! Kids under 13 will still be tracked in the millions, just not on certain videos. This law is only hurting creators who are creating kids content while YouTube will still be tracking kids under 13 in high numbers. There will still be millions of kids under the age of 13 commenting on videos not made directly for kids. They will still be getting all their notifications from their favorite gaming or reaction channels or whatever other popular channels they watch who will claim their content is not made with the intention of targeting kids. Remember, the law says it does not matter if your audience has kids watching as long as you are not creating your content strictly targeting them.

Did anyone think of this logically and how they are not actually accomplishing the exact thing they are trying to accomplish?
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That is what I said in my comment to the FTC. Channels like WWE, NFL, NBA all attract huge audiences of children under 13 (even if it's just 10-20% of their total views), yet their content is clearly not child directed. Those users will all still be tracked. In the end this will probably reduce the number of children having a personal identifier by a small percentage. Children that are under 13 using YouTube main will likely still continue to use it and consume whatever content YT feeds them so in the end I don't see having much of an affect in terms of reducing the tracking of children for the purposes of advertising.
 
eric3316 said:
This law in no way eliminates the tracking of minors so I am really confused of its point at all. If someone like DanTDM says he does not create videos with the intention of targeting kids, he then has all his comments, notifications, community posts and play lists active. Well that is great but now let's say 2 million kids under the age of 13 (which is quite possible based on his audience) watches his videos, that is 2 million kids under 13 that they will be tracking and because he claims his videos are not made directly for kids, it's all good then to track away at those minors? Now times that by all the huge YouTubers who have millions and millions of viewers who are probably under the age of 13 and what exactly is this law protecting when it comes to tracking? Absolutely nothing! Kids under 13 will still be tracked in the millions, just not on certain videos. This law is only hurting creators who are creating kids content while YouTube will still be tracking kids under 13 in high numbers. There will still be millions of kids under the age of 13 commenting on videos not made directly for kids. They will still be getting all their notifications from their favorite gaming or reaction channels or whatever other popular channels they watch who will claim their content is not made with the intention of targeting kids. Remember, the law says it does not matter if your audience has kids watching as long as you are not creating your content strictly targeting them.

Did anyone think of this logically and how they are not actually accomplishing the exact thing they are trying to accomplish?
Click to expand...
^^^^^ The elephant in the room @ YouTube that Susan probably thinks the FTC is too dumb to understand ^^^^^
 
eric3316 said:
This law in no way eliminates the tracking of minors so I am really confused of its point at all. If someone like DanTDM says he does not create videos with the intention of targeting kids, he then has all his comments, notifications, community posts and play lists active. Well that is great but now let's say 2 million kids under the age of 13 (which is quite possible based on his audience) watches his videos, that is 2 million kids under 13 that they will be tracking and because he claims his videos are not made directly for kids, it's all good then to track away at those minors? Now times that by all the huge YouTubers who have millions and millions of viewers who are probably under the age of 13 and what exactly is this law protecting when it comes to tracking? Absolutely nothing! Kids under 13 will still be tracked in the millions, just not on certain videos. This law is only hurting creators who are creating kids content while YouTube will still be tracking kids under 13 in high numbers. There will still be millions of kids under the age of 13 commenting on videos not made directly for kids. They will still be getting all their notifications from their favorite gaming or reaction channels or whatever other popular channels they watch who will claim their content is not made with the intention of targeting kids. Remember, the law says it does not matter if your audience has kids watching as long as you are not creating your content strictly targeting them.

Did anyone think of this logically and how they are not actually accomplishing the exact thing they are trying to accomplish?
Click to expand...

You are 100% right and we have already mentioned this. The majority of youtube viewers are kids. I love the idiots that say hey Youtube anlaytics says all of my viewers are over 13 so I'm good. Well that's because you can't create an account under 13 and kids watch on the parent account. Youtube has been experimenting with the algorithm to keep kid viewers ads by exposing them to mixed audience categories and educational channels. They have decided to abandon dedicated kids content. I can't imagine the feeling for creators that rely on this. Although we made a lot over the years, I never even thought of doing it full time.
 
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There’s a few channels where Im curious to see how they handle this whole situation. They seem more on the cusp/line and not so nursery rhymey.

Axel Show- my kid watches this. At first glance it’s for kids but our family also thoroughly enjoys it. And based off comments, it seems lots of older people are into it. Would that allow them to fall into General Audience?

The Izzys / Izzy’s Toy Time- similar to above. They play with toys but the main appeal are the two parents interacting with each other- they don’t talk to the camera dumbed down as if for kids. Definite General Audience appeal. And based off of comments it seems like adults are watching in addition to kids.

Shot of the Yeagers- same as the other two. Kid oriented but also enjoyable to adults. I wonder if they flag their stuff as for kids come Jan 1?

Ultimately who makes the final determination? What’s the process like? Is it a dialogue? Or a, we disagree, here’s your fine (or more likely, hey YouTube close this channel)
 
www.projectveritas.com

Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower Goes Public, says: “burden lifted off of my soul”

(San Francisco) A Google insider who anonymously leaked internal documents to Project Veritas made the decision to go public in an on-the-record video interview.
www.projectveritas.com www.projectveritas.com

This is what Google parent company of Youtube is capable of. I am aware that Google provides an alternative story that may have some validity. Nonetheless another reason why the DOJ needs to conduct a criminal investigation. The engineer later came out about a corrupt algorithm that suppresses channels. This is why engineers don't blow the whistle more often.

"According to the Google insider, YouTube staff were told during a meeting that there was going to be more content filtering on the platform. After this meeting, lots of YouTube channels were demonetized and deranked, including the five channels listed above." I believe they have done the same thing with kids videos because it is no longer profitable

There is a current lawsuit that was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that deals with suppressing speech by Youtube. A lot of the same legal theories argued here would apply to kid content creators. https://www.chamberlitigation.com/sites/default/files/cases/files/18181818/Appellant’s Opening Brief -- Prager University v. Google LLC (Ninth Circuit) .pdf If you don't want to watch whole thing watch 7:22 to around 9:00 mark of video showing oral arguments to 9th Circuit. They can take the revenue away, but taking the views away through content suppression is actionable in a court of law. Will probably lose the 1st amendment argument, but several other causes of actions dealing with contract law is very plausible. At least in the sense of surviving to discovery which Youtube LLC would never allow to happen. Probably even settle if you can survive.

At one point in the oral argument, the appellate judge asked the attorney representing Youtube, "so are you telling me they have no remedy?" The judge is talking about when channel owners' content is suppressed by an unfair algorithm and the attorney's response is "yes." Give me a break, what a nefarious joke of a company. (starting at 23:00 minute mark in the video below)

Most important part to watch is starting at 39:24 (Youtube is so afraid of discovery)

 
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Just watch about two minutes starting at this point in the video. Exactly what we need to expose Youtube. You want the shareholders to demand change, get to discovery and it will come. Instead of firing off comments to the FTC, we need to be standing behind those that are willing to sue Youtube and get access to the dirty secrets of the algorithm. I am willing to spend money to help get to discovery even if it means losing in summary judgement. It is not about winning the lawsuit, it is about holding Youtube accountable for the power they have been given to control what the public sees. If we can expose the dirty secrets of the alogrithm and show to the stockholders of Alphabet that leadership has lied to us, we will all win with change in leadership.

This same AI that suppresses conservative content is being implemented for kids videos. It is so obvious. This group wants to fight Youtube more so on their perceived liberal politics. My position is just that Youtube is unfair and is willing to engage in deceptive trade practices in the name of ad revenue, the politics of it are meaningless to me. It is contrary to the terms of service and although they have updated their TOS to try to combat this argument, the fact remains that the new TOS is not retroactive in contract law.



 
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