- For the Australian YouTuber, see Coppa.
Full-text logo of COPPA
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA for short) is a United States federal law that was enacted on October 21, 1998, and became effective on April 21, 2000. The law applies to online collection of personal information from children under 13 years of age, regardless of their location. It details what website owners must include in their privacy policies, when to seek verifiable consent from parents or guardians, and the responsibilities they must take to protect children's online privacy, including restrictions on the marketing of content to those under 13.
To comply with COPPA, YouTube has a setting about whether a channel or video is made for kids or not, and went into effect on January 6, 2020. YouTube cannot allow users under 13 to create an account due to the cost and work involved with complying with the law.
History[]
In April 2018, over 20 advocacy groups complained to the FTC that YouTube's main site violated COPPA by collecting data and serving personalized ads on child-directed channels and videos.[1] On September 4, 2019, the FTC and the New York Attorney General issued a fine of $170 million to YouTube for COPPA violations, using the creation of YouTube Kids as evidence that YouTube knew that children were using their website.[2]
As a result, YouTube announced that as part of the settlement, in 2020, it would require channel operators to mark videos that are "child-oriented" as such, and would use machine learning to automatically mark those as clearly "child-oriented" if not marked already. In the settlement terms, channel operators that failed to mark videos as "child-oriented" could be fined by the FTC for up to $42,530 per video, which has raised criticism towards the settlement terms.
This entire feature on YouTube gained criticism and concerning comments coming from smaller and bigger creators alike, not knowing if their channel and videos are made for kids or not. They also said that the fine is very concerning and disastrous. The fact that content creators have been forced to make family-friendly content for years to appease advertisers only to be rendered worthless later on is another factor of criticism. Some have said that these new policies will not protect minors (What COPPA is intended to do) since kids can still go onto the website, but they'll be virtually unable to find family-friendly content, and might end up watching a lot of mature content instead. This leads to some creators to private most of their videos (e.g. Crunchphibia), etc. It is also has affected videos that are obviously not made/intended for kids. (e.g. Happy Tree Friends, Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, some SuperMarioLogan videos, some Spongebob/MLP/Sonic fan videos etc.) This leads to some YouTubers to move to some YouTube alternatives (e.g. Vlare, VidLii, Vimeo, Odysee, BitChute and Dailymotion).
This also leads to some creators like PewDiePie, Chadtronic, Garrett Williamson, etc. to make announcements about COPPA going on YouTube to their viewers, etc.
Removing the watch later button on video players. This was a pun of the Electronic Arts' popular stealth PS1 game before the Sims, Fade to Black.
"Made for Kids" content[]
What counts as "Made For Kids"?[]
- Children or children’s characters/celebrities.
- Popular children’s programming or animated characters. This doesn't count unpopular children's programming or animated characters on or before November 12, 2019
- Play-acting, or stories using children’s toys.
- Child protagonists engaging in common natural play patterns, such as play-acting and/or imaginative play.
- Popular children’s songs, stories or poems.
What Happens If You Set Your Channel/Videos As "Made For Kids"?[]
The following features are disabled on content "Made for Kids", as they rely on user data:
- Subscribers won't get any notifications if a video is uploaded.
- The comments on the video will be "turned off".
- The "Try YouTube Kids" banner appears at the bottom of the video.
- The video won't get any revenue from personalized ads. However, still get revenue from contextual ads.
- The video can't be added to playlists.[n 1] However, it is not removed from playlists which already contained the video prior to it being marked as for kids.
- The video can't have end cards.
- The video can't be played in the mini-player on the mobile app.
- The video can't join as a member subscription on kids videos.
- The video can't be downloaded.[n 1]
This will also apply to older videos, and embedded videos will have the Share button replaced with a copy link button and the watch later button removed.
Criticism[]
Various concerns have been attributed to the changes in 2020 by the time the update began as of January 6, 2020, with many criticising it for not solving the problem. One of the biggest concerns is that children can still access content that isn't marked as "made for kids" and still get personalized ads. Another concern is that the features taken away will discourage child appropriate content so significantly that creators would either move to a different platform (like the aforementioned Vlare in addition to Dailymotion) or start making mature content, therefore totally eliminating child appropriate content from the platform; additionally, children who watch particular creators would be exposed to material that isn't appropriate for their age.
Concerns regarding the "made for kids" videos that will stay also exist, with many pointing out the severe drop in ad revenue in relation to the option of a career for children's creators. Big budget videos would be almost impossible unless funded by a third party (branding deal.) The lack of playlist and search options makes series based content almost impossible, enticing simpler one-off videos.
Another concern is mislabeled videos made for kids. Some videos have inappropriate language, gore, brutalities and even sexual content that are not for kids. Infamously, a number of videos part of the Elsagate incident were labelled as for kids despite featuring deceptive thumbnails and content inappropriate for young audiences. Many of these videos were later deleted.
Other criticism concerns holding creators accountable for failing to comply with the ruling, with some pointing out that even if the creator says that the video is for all ages and not just children, the FTC could disagree based on the content of the video and take action against the offending creator. Examples include childish or cartoon-ish looking toys, shows and games which are well-known and very popular among all ages (not just children). Even by "Made for Kids" standards, there is some family-friendly material that tackle more darker subject matter.
Fraud[]
Because websites including YouTube prohibit users 12 and under from creating an account, this has presented many opportunities for identity fraud including age fabrication, which is difficult to defeat since each person's date of birth is unchangeable. Complaints about age fraud has led to legislation in some jurisdictions, including implementing stiff penalties for someone who either falsifies or uses someone else's date of birth. For example, in the United States, age fabrication is unlawful under Section 1028 of the Criminal Code and offenders can face a minimum of $10,000 in fines and three years in prison. A number of websites have taken the chance to combat age fraud, either partnering with a third-party provider such as ID.me, Yoti, or k-ID, or in the case of YouTube, requiring users to input credit card information, to verify the identities of users before they can use their services or access certain content.
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