New Youtube Rules for Kids' Content

[MJNSEIFER]

I don't see why any of these have to be demonetized - it's not the kids themselves who are paying to watch the videos, and actual kid's channels on television have adverts on them.  Or by "personalized ads" do they just mean adverts that the YouTuber chooses to put on them?

Well, it's not quite just flat demonitezation, the personalized ads pay much more than those that aren't.
Kids channels do not keep an individual profile of each kid watching their content, is the issue.

Thanks for explaining.

Okay, this is becoming more official, because I have been told on my channel that I will need to say if my videos are for kids, but I'm at a crossroads as to what to do.

My videos are not aimed at kids, but kids would be okay to watch them.  Kids could be seen as the second audience, but that means I have to say they're for kids too.

My main show will be an Animation Review show, and many animations are for kids, even though we all know adults also watch them (reviews of animations for adults will be age restricted by me.)  Because of this, the videos may be recognised as being for kids anyway.

I don't want to label my videos as being aimed at kids, because I'll lose comments, and I want to have comments on my videos.  But I don't know if I can say they aren't aimed at kids, when they might look like they are...

I really hope this is sorted out, because I love YouTube (and I know this isn't their fault), and I get it's not perfect as it relies on bots too much, but it's been a good site for me this decade... I want to be "part" of the YouTuber community, and finally got a chance to get really close this year...

[Taffeta]

Read through most of this thread, and agree with a lot of the higlighted problems along with the need for something to be done to keep kids safe.

It kind of horrifies me a little bit seeing how unguarded kids are online sometimes. I don't use a lot of social media platforms and I refuse to see YT in its base form as one - but it has become one because of the rise of vlogging and influencers. And I genuinely don't understand a lot of the reasons influencer videos get watched but people are strange to me...

People saying their real name, age...even location on websites when they're really young is so risky. I guess that's the one reason about comments being disabled. But on the other hand kids will always look to do what the adults are doing, so you'd think moderated comments on videos containing kids content would be a better idea...like certain watch words filtered out (curse words, racially or sexually questionable words, etc, including various potential ways of misspelling them to get around the filters)...I dunno.

Just something to actually make the kids safe in the existing space, rather than lock them away.

Also, I wonder how anime will work in this. Anime is not kids stuff. Then again, some of it is. Pokemon might be seen as kid's stuff. Will Attack on Titan be as well then? It's such a grey area that requires knowledge of the series in question and also what kind of media is being made about it. (I think of the horrible explicit g4 pony images that were spammed all over a forum I moderated once as a good example of something child-friendly made unfriendly by idiots and then spammed in a public place)

It's just more complicated than just 'here's a rule, we've solved it'.

As for hostile comments, the damage done by trolls on all platforms on people's mental health overall is another problem, and not uniquely associated to kids.

Which brings me to my final point. Where are they drawing the 'kid' line? 10? 12? 15? younger? 18?

[tailrustedtealeaf]

On the "no longer using anonymous names" point, I think my age and a few years younger are the last to use the fake names. That's not even true of people my age, though, I saw so many people use their full first and last names as Instagram handles in high school! I can only imagine all the flack kids now get by posting under their name instead of an anonymous handle.
I think the "kid" line is drawn at 13, because that's the age where you no longer need parents permission to participate in sites such as forums, etc. It's an information collection issue.

[MJNSEIFER]

I've been shown a petition to FTC about this.
https://www.change.org/p/youtubers-and-viewers-unite-against-ftc-regulation

I really hope that I can count on at least some of you to sign - things have been saved this way before, and it's a lot better than just sitting around saying it won't work.  YouTube means a lot to not just me, but to many people, and while it's still flawed, it can and should be better than what it may become if this isn't stopped.

[Carrehz]

yeah, it really concerns me how many folks these days just plaster their real name, age, location... all sorts of identifying info, online. It's not safe, damn it! I'm not saying "never give any info out ever", but the things some people put on their public blogs for all and sundry to see... I blame social media for the cavalier attitude some peeps have about this sort of stuff.

Taffeta - yeah, the anime thing is my main concern, here. The thing is that, like you said, a lot of them are in a grey area where they're not inappropriate for kids, but they're not exactly intended for them, either? Or they're intended for kids/youngsters but have stuff that wouldn't fly in western kids' shows - I'm thinking stuff like Ojamajo Doremi - it's for kids, but it deals with some more mature themes as the girls grow up. How do you classify something like that? @_@; It's all a mess.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

I don't think the petition is the best way to go about this. There's a lot of grey area, very tricky to deal with.

[lonewolf]

I got to thinking: The FTC is going to be deciding what is and isn't kid friendly, and pretty much punishing people for what they make.

Could this be considered violating the 1st amendment?

[tailrustedtealeaf]

I got to thinking: The FTC is going to be deciding what is and isn't kid friendly, and pretty much punishing people for what they make.

Could this be considered violating the 1st amendment?

Unless I'm missing something, Youtube is deciding what is and is not kid friendly. The FTC just punished them for collection of data. So no. 

[lonewolf]

I got to thinking: The FTC is going to be deciding what is and isn't kid friendly, and pretty much punishing people for what they make.

Could this be considered violating the 1st amendment?

Unless I'm missing something, Youtube is deciding what is and is not kid friendly. The FTC just punished them for collection of data. So no.

No. The FTC, aka government is going to go through people's videos, determine what is and isn't kid friendly, and punish people for what they make. This could very well violate the 1st amendment rights of Youtube, and creators, because it's government doing what could be considered silencing people's freedom of speech.

[Carrehz]

Heh, I'm sceptical of all internet petitions, personally.

I just checked my account; it's interesting to see what they did/didn't mark as "made for kids". A handful of my Doremi vids were marked (interestingly enough, they seem to have specifically targeted the opening/ending themes for the final season) but not the vast majority of them, which raises even more questions about how their computers/robots/whatever determine what's "made for kids". Hmmm.

I checked their FAQ and it says if they think you've marked your video incorrectly, they can change it. Which makes sense for stuff that's inappropriate for kids but has been marked as "made for kids", but doesn't... really make sense the other way around? I mean, if someone marks their kid-friendly video as "NOT made for kids" then what's the harm there? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding it.

[brightberry]

There is definitely a difference between “kid safe” and “made for kids”.   YouTube should acknowledge that.  And as I said before, kids and adults frequently like the same things.  Anime, Marvel Movies, My Little Pony, Disney Animation, craft videos, box openings and so on.  I foresee the entire project being far too random to do what they intend it to do.

[MJNSEIFER]

Something needs to be done, and the petition is the best we've got so far.  I get that there may be grey areas, but the FTC are making it greyer by how vague their system is (or YouTube are if they chose the system.)

One or both of them needs to see that if they have to be stricter on this, they have to do it another way - like make it harder to log in to YouTube if your underage (like go through a lot of stuff to prove your age each time you log in - annoying yes, but better than this.)

It wouldn't be that bad if the only penalty for marking your videos "incorrectly" was that the system changes it to "for kids" and takes away the things it would have taken away if you had marked it as "for kids" yourself (monetization, comments, etc.), which would be bad, but safe as you could simply refute the claim if you chose to.  The system they are going to use will actually fine us if we get it "wrong", which is scarily unfair, especially as the idea of what is made for kids is vague...

There is definitely a difference between “kid safe” and “made for kids”.   YouTube should acknowledge that.  And as I said before, kids and adults frequently like the same things.  Anime, Marvel Movies, My Little Pony, Disney Animation, craft videos, box openings and so on.  I foresee the entire project being far too random to do what they intend it to do.

...for pretty much this reason.  Not to mention that some YouTubers would do a video about something that is for kids (like, for example review a kid's show), but their video is not for kids, due to how the YouTuber acts (like they may swear), but the system will simply see it's a kid's show being talked about and "think" the video is for kids.

So yeah, something needs to be done, and I really hope it is.

[Carrehz]

I think if it was up to me, I would've just made it so you can specify if it's appropriate for kids or not (so we don't have to split hairs over the "intended for kids" vs "kid safe, but not necessarily meant for them" thing), and the comments just don't show up if you're on a "kid" account. Or something. That probably wouldn't be a *perfect* solution, but like we've been discussing, there's just too many grey areas for the system they've proposed to really work. :/

[bright rabbit 1]

One of my favourite doll customisers has left YouTube with all of this going on. I wouldn’t be surprised if more channels leave YouTube.

Looks like I’m going to follow some of my favourite customisers and family vlogs on Patreon.

[MJNSEIFER]

Does anyone know if you can get fined if you label a video as for kids, and the system decides it isn't?  I know that if I do the reverse, I could get fined, and this will be a big risk to me, as I will be reviewing cartoons, many of which are aimed at kids, but if I label the video as for kids and it disagrees, is that a fine too?

It would be... tolerable if not; I would lose comments and it would be even harder to be found on YouTube, but that would be better than being fined.  I'd be able to put up with it, until things get sorted out if that's the case.