Well, this is a mess. And there’s gonna be some unintentional consequences to YouTube’s response to COPPA.
Who is actually going to mark their videos as for kids? No comments, co community tab, no data collection, so probably no algorithm boost, info cards, screens, no save to watch later, no playlist, and most importantly no youtube revenue. They are literally taking away everything if you want to have your videos be seen by kids. Even the people who were making uploads specifically for kids like Peppa Pig are losing almost all incentive to do so. Sure, there’s still brand recognition and potentially merchandise, but probably not even that. Chances are YouTube has just effectively frozen their For Children’s video library for the foreseeable future.
And again, I don’t think YouTube wants that, they’re just backed into a legal corner and have to make this decision. But I do think it’s the wrong decision and there could be a better way, but more on that later.
So no one is going to say their videos are for kids any more. There’s just no margin in doing that. But once we make that switch, once we realize that the kids are out of the pool, youtube is going to go downhill. I’ve been lamenting that truly educational content hasn’t had a home on YouTube where the vapid and shallow are promoted by an algorithm that has no problem giving us desert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But now that the kids are gone, then why shouldn’t we drop F-bombs and get after-dark all the time now? Oh, sure, there’s still the advertising guidelines, but do you think that’s going to matter when videos are getting millions of views. In some ways, I’ll be the advertisers are going to love this. YouTube is going to become laser focused on their 18-25 male demographic now. I mean, they’re not going to stop creators like me from making videos, but this is going to do all it can to disincentive it.
But YouTube could have made a better solution. As I said in the video, set the default viewer response to be “for kids”. Not logged into YouTube or don’t have a registered email (or something) then no ads, no comments, no tracking, no watch later or playlists, and no videos that aren’t marked “for kids”. But, register your account, prove you’re not a kid, and everything opens up. That way all ages uploaders like me can still reach everyone, but still benefit from the registered older viewers.
Of course do we have a reliable method of checking a person’s age online? The nature of the anonymity of online interactions, and people’s blind dedication to the same, is such that we can’t reliably say that anyone is or isn’t who they say we are. We’d need to break down that barrier so we can be sure, and when a court case is involved there’s probably no alternative that would work besides that.
It’s conspiracy theory time. What if this is what YouTube wants? What if they see this as a way to slow down the uploads. Cut off all those Spiderman and Elsa channels. Either they’ve got to give up a lot of money, or they’ve got to give up either audience. This gives them no reason to upload so maybe they’ll just go away? This, honestly, is something I could get behind. But I doubt that’s the case. It may just be a positive side effect.
