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web COPPA poses a massive threat to Youtube creators


Plonkett

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I've heard about this, and it basically KILLS a LOT of content creators channels. Like almost EVERY channel that creates Pokemon content would be totally killed off if the COPPA were allowed this. Most channels covering Nintendo-centric content would be done. I mean the list goes on, but the point is, this harms a LOT more people than it could POSSIBLY "protect."

 

Not even to mention I think COPPA forgot that freedom of speech is a thing that EXISTS. And it's even in our BILL OF RIGHTS. Stated QUITE EXPLICITLY. :dry: I'm glad I don't have to watch this video to know what they will do, or my laptop may not work right now thanks indirectly to these dip$#!+s. 

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Hmm.. It may be time to find a youtube download script. I have some free space on my file server - it may be time to resurrect my old practice of downloading every video I watch and like :)

57 minutes ago, Ayyngel Dust said:

Not even to mention I think COPPA forgot that freedom of speech is a thing that EXISTS.

I don't think it restricts the freedom of speech though.

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It’s the largest fine ever collected under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which forbids collecting data from children under the age of 13 without explicit consent from their parents. In this case, the ruling means YouTube can’t employ its powerful ad-targeting system on anyone who might be under the age of 13 — a dire problem for a platform with so many young users.

Source

So, it's kind-of like GDPR, but applying only to kids. 

Quote

The most obvious is the removal of targeted ads, but a number of other YouTube features are also impossible without personalized data. In particular, child-directed videos will no longer include a comments section, click-through info cards, end screens, notification functions, and the community tab, all powerful tools for driving viewers back to a channel.

Can someone explain to me how "cannot collect data from children" goes to "no comment section". Comments can only be made by registered users anyway, and you can specify your age when registering (and Google can figure out how to verify that the age is correct if it needs to). And a child reading a comment does not involve gathering information about that child (comments may be hidden for children and not logged in viewers).

But other than the comment section (which I read some of the time, but write very rarely), it does not seem like such a big deal.

Still, I should go looking for that script.

EDIT: OK, it seems that creators will be liable if they "mislabel" the videos. Now that's BS - it's Youtube that collects data about children, not the uploader. Youtube can always go to opt-in model for data collection, like GDPR requires (registered users over 13 years old can opt-in to get their data collected, data is not collected by default).

Edited by Pentium100
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This is worrying me because I'm scared that all those fanmade PMV, My Little Disney videos by DagaYemar or Pony and the Beast by DisneyFanatic will poof out of existence. All those years of hard-working videos made by hard-working people lost forever.

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As a musician, it really hurts seeing this. We as creators should not be forced to pick up the pieces of the mistake YouTube made. YouTube should've face a much bigger fine and a settlement should not have even been an option. The more comments the FTC gets, the more hope we as creators have. 

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Just now, ggg-2 said:

I've heard of this, but I don't know what COPPA actually is. Someone explain?

AFAIK it's a law in the US that says that you cannot collect any data about children younger than 13 without the permission of their parents.

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1 hour ago, Denim&Venom said:

This law was enacted back in 2000. Why is it becoming a big deal now? 

A while back, the FTC sued Youtube $174 million for violating COPPA, then they made an agreement that creators are now liable for legal penalties regarding COPPA.

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16 minutes ago, vgmaster9 said:

A while back, the FTC sued Youtube $174 million for violating COPPA, then they made an agreement that creators are now liable for legal penalties regarding COPPA.

If anything, a lot of this has been going on for years (i.e. Elsagate) and this is just the boiling over point.

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47 minutes ago, vgmaster9 said:

A while back, the FTC sued Youtube $174 million for violating COPPA, then they made an agreement that creators are now liable for legal penalties regarding COPPA.

I talked to the EFF about this today. They're mulling over all of the details to determine the best way to address it, and determine the best course of action.

I see no way this is constitutional for the FTC to sue content creators. Content creators don't collect data on viewers. Google does. And even as it applies to analytics, that's data collected by Google, then given to channel owners. I see a huge class-action suit coming, along with a civil rights case.

COPPA in this regard does far more harm than good. It won't protect children. In fact, with how overreaching the rules are, videos that are NOT meant for kids in the slightest, will end up being flagged as kid videos, which means kids potentially will see all sorts of stuff that they shouldn't be seeing.

Then there's the moral implication. Something that things like the MPAA have never done since with things like TV and movies, parents still have the option to decide what they let their children watch. And if a kid turns on HBO at 2AM and sees some naughty bits, that's not HBO's fault. But this? It's like we're outright being told now that adults and children do not have the freedom to enjoy the same shows. That's a travesty, and an attack on every fandom from Ponies to Star Wars. The FTC probably doesn't even realize it. They're declaring war against pop culture. And the legal implications of this law are as follows: only people rich enough to fight the FTC in court, have the right to create media content. This takes the power of creation away from the people and back solely into the hands of the big corporations.

Now, there are a lot of other ways youtube could have approached this that would have protected creators from accidents like this. That they didn't think of it, is highly disturbing. There's a lot of corruption in here somewhere. Who is doing this or why? That's another story. There are too many parties ranging from government to companies with private streaming services who have a LOT to gain from this change.

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3 minutes ago, BornAgainBrony said:

Content creators don't collect data on viewers. Google does.

Yea, this. I guess protecting the profit of Google is more important for the FTC. And "collecting personal/tracking data" is not necessary for the comments to work anyway. Not having targeted ads would mean lower profits for Google though.

18 minutes ago, BornAgainBrony said:

That's a travesty, and an attack on every fandom from Ponies to Star Wars. The FTC probably doesn't even realize it. They're declaring war against pop culture.

In my opinion, it Google that's trying to get the law changed by inconveniencing the people, so people complain. 

Right now, there are videos on Youtube that are unsuitable for children. To watch one, I have to "sign in to confirm [my] age". If I am not signed in, I do not see the video (which annoys me as I usually do not sign in to Youtube). That can be extended to 13+ rated videos. You have to confirm your age to be allowed to watch the video and young kids don't get to see it, whether it has ponies in it or not. Hell, it may even be possible to verify that the person is older than 13 or something (and not just lying).

That seems to work for other online services,where usually you have to just click to confirm that you are older than 13 (or 18 for other services). So far I have not seen any porn site sued for showing porn to kids who lie and click that they are over 18.

However, that would be the sensible option. It would hurt Google's profits though as anyone not signed in or not confirmed over 13 would not be able to be tracked. That's the big problem. So Google figured out a way around this - comply with the law, but in a way that gets a lot of people angry, and if the anger could then be directed at the FTC, maybe the law would get changed and suddenly Google would be able to legally profit from selling kids data.

Besides, the tracking part? Under the GDPR they have to get consent for it anyway and under the GDPR the consent cannot be a requirement to use the service.

GDPR states that any data collection has to be opt-in and that you cannot make it a condition to use the service (let me track you and sell your data or you don't get to see videos). An exception is made for data that is required for the service to operate, but that data cannot be used for any other purposes (statistics etc). GDPR also says that the data should be deleted after the business is concluded and the data is no longer needed (you no longer need to have my address after you send the item I bought and I receive it, whatever warranty service there is it has to be tied to the item - serial number for example - but not my name or address). Obviously the GDPR is more complex than what I have written, but it is very strict.

Google has already been fined for breaking the GDPR.

 

It looks to me like Google is doing what the shops in my country did some time ago. The government proposed to increase penalties for selling alcohol to minors and (I think, I am not sure) to have "secret buyers" to test whether the shop is selling alcohol to minors.That seems to be good, right? Minors should not be able to buy alcohol. However the shops really hated the proposal, so they decided to "fully comply with the law" by asking anyone buying alcohol for their ID. Even if the person is 90 years old (you know, could be a really old-looking 17 year old). This annoyed people enough to get the government to reconsider. Selling alcohol to minors is still illegal by the way, except that the shops can get away with it easier than if the new law was passed. So, Google wants the same thing, it wants to track the kids and sell their data, but frames it in such a way that makes the government look unreasonable. 

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You know what we all should do? Take all the content on YouTube, take it out of there, and put it somewhere else.

The company can actually do whatever they want because it's a private company and they do, so why stay there like an addict if it's not good for anyone? Let's organize a massive move to get out of there and maybe give a new better company to handle it.

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Content creators have already been treated unfairly by YouTube, now YouTube apparently wants to make things worse for them. YouTube keeps getting worse now, I think it would be better for content creators to move to another video sharing site.

Edited by EpicEnergy
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  • 1 month later...

The new COPPA rules are officially in effect for 24 hours now so far. You can now only view or subscribe and that's it -- that is, on videos "made for kids". To make matters WORSE, some videos that are NOT for kids were still flagged anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-ls5G07RLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P6PeXK0zmg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAHcI3MhesU

And worst of all, you can't play any of these videos on YouTube Kids. Moreover, one of them is even an age-restricted video!

 

This is unacceptable. Us creators should sue the FTC for this.

Edited by FirePuppy
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  • 2 weeks later...

COPPA itself should get updated since it was enacted before Social Media got big and years before the rise of Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006). It was enacted in 1998, and took effect in 2000. It was also the heyday of the Internet . Maybe things would work out better with updating a law that's over 20 years old in which many advances of the Internet took place . 

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On 1/16/2020 at 4:34 PM, Splashee said:

Okay, so what purpose does disabled comments do? if it is not for kids, why should adults have to be kept quiet? Am I missing the point here?

Just YouTube being assholes.

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16 minutes ago, vgmaster9 said:

Just YouTube being assholes.

Really?

As soon as you agree to their terms, they deny you a lot. if you don't agree, you could be sued by COPPA. It sounds like they want Youtubes to take risks?

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Well I don't know the full effects of COPPA, but I can at least recount my experience so far...

I decided to check last night, and because the few videos I have could be considered "for kids", YouTube went ahead and disabled the comments on all my videos.
It wasn't anything necessarily bad, I just had to change some settings in my creator studio to let them know this was not the case. A minor annoyance, but an easily fixed one. Still, why did they not even send me an e-mail about this? Is anyone else getting e-mails? You'd think something this big would get you a message or something. I didn't even get a front-page notification  or anything...

Outside of that, disabling comments seems to be the only major thing. A channel I know got hit with this, but they still appeared in my recommendations each day before having to fix their account.

However, I have gone to channels that have uploaded clips from cartoon shows. Nearly every one I've seen has their comments disabled. So it's no big deal if you are active and checking your stuff regularly, but if you just made an account one time and stepped away, get use to those changes staying that way for that channel.

Edited by Samurai Equine
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