Youtubers! New COPPA Laws Could Get You FINED!
Hello my lovely WAers. I hope you're all doing well and are excited with Black Friday right around the corner. I'm so excited to be renewing my membership myself at the lowest price that WA has ever offered it!
If you're new to WA and are still pondering whether you should get this discount, my advice is to GET IT WHEN IT HITS and to ponder later. LOL! That's if you're serious and dedicated enough to grow your online business.
The BEST reason why you should get it, in my opinion, is so you don't worry about needing to come up with the money every single month. That really relieved me of the stress and left me to work on my online business, without worry.
But in the midst
...of all this Black Friday excitement, with Christmas and New Year's too that's around the corner, we still have to make sure that we are always in compliance with rules and regulations, and most importantly, the LAW when it comes to our online business.
I haven't seen anybody write about this and since I'm becoming a bit more serious with "Youtubing" now, there might be others in the community who might be like me, but who don't know about the new COPPA laws put together by the FTC.
COPPA means "Child Online Privacy Protection Act" and it was created to protect the privacy of children online. It applies to everybody who creates content on Youtube, not only to American Youtubers.
It is a REQUIREMENT now that you label each of your video uploads on Youtube as "made for kids" or "not made for kids" and you only have up until January 1st, 2020 to go through your WHOLE channel, video by video, to make sure that you are compliant.
And if you don't do so, you run the risk of being fined $40,000+ per video by the FTC!
Now, if you're 100% sure that NONE of your videos are going to be made for kids, then you can set this at the CHANNEL level so that ALL your existing video and new videos get categorized appropriately.
That way, you won't have to do this one video at a time.
What Does The FTC Consider As A Video Made For Children?
Well, there's a video that Youtube themselves published that you can get to HERE. (This will take you to Youtube directly to see the video).
But if you want a brief list, these are some of the conditions that you should take into consideration when deciding whether to mark your videos as made for kids or not.
What If Your Content Is "Made For Kids?"
You would obviously have to flag your videos appropriate and unfortunately, if they are made for kids, it will affect a few things and your audience will have a lot of restrictions.
The below is what will happen if your content is deemed as "Made for kids":
What this means is that any data that would usually be collected is going to be restricted and that's important if you're monetized on Youtube, or hoping to be monetized.
Personalized Ads are ads that are shown to your audience based on their Youtube/internet browsing habits and that information won't be collected anymore. This means that your CPM will go down, and so will your income from ads.
Additionally, other features like comments will be disabled, and you won't be able to add info cards and end screens to your videos. Your audience will not be able to save the video to watch later and won't be able to save to a playlist.
Another important feature that will be removed, is the notification bell icon. Your audience will not be able to receive notifications when you upload new videos.
Lots Of People Are Not Happy About This...
...but knowing about it will at least save you from getting fined! This is definitely a rough patch for a lot of us but know that overcoming changes is never easy and that it is still possible for you to grow your channel, even if it is kid-friendy.
I hope that you found this post helpful.
Do You Create Videos/Content Made For Kids?
If so, what do you intend to do about these new laws? Are you going to keep making kid-friendly videos and accept these changes?
Lots of Love,
Reyhana
Recent Comments
49
Hi, Reyhana...
None of my videos really are intended for children but I do use some animation type video styles so I guess kids might be attracted to them (?)...
Thanks for this heads up, one more thing to worry about hehe...I am still waiting on a reading on the new YT ToS from one of the top guys I know when it comes to YT and all things video...
There have been ToS changes that came into effect on 11 November (this news is from Marion B here, bless her) and I have asked him (the top guy) to give members of his private group some clarification...
It is good to keep up with the changes or risk getting fined (as poor Michelle here went through for an image) or worse jail, as people here in the thread are saying.
Just as with using images for your posts, you put yourself at risk if you do not do the due diligence, and sometimes even if you do (as was the case with Michelle)...
Great post and I appreciate the information!
Cheers!
Dave : )
It's a pleasure to share, Dave.
It might be safer not to use any animation, even if the video is not intended for kids. COPPA is really killing our creativity, isn't it?
But do keep us updated on what the "top guy" says about this. It will be great to have a trusted update.
And you're right. We always have to keep updated, and even if we do our homework, it's never a sure thing that we won't get in trouble. The risks are reduced significantly but there's never a guarantee.
I guess it is a risk that we need to take in business, or just invest in creating everything ourselves to avoid them.
Thanks for reading and wish you the best.
Thank you Reyhana for building awareness around these changes and giving the heads up much appreciated
Jennifer
You're very welcome, Jennifer.. I thought that this is something that the community needed to know about. It's a big change.
I would have to make a Channel about Bible Stories for Kids for me to have my Channel's any where near this Brand New Risk.
But SH^T what a HUGE Trending News #Hashtag lol....
I;m gona do just that.:)
I'm going to link our peeps to this brilliant reference
Thanks for your DETAIL Reyhana...
I understand where you're coming from, but what I recently also found out, is that Youtube is also taking any animated content as being made for kids, even if they're anime (obviously not made for kids), as well as gaming videos.
So we have to tread very carefully here. We all have to think about whether we have content that kids would be likely to watch.
If somebody marks their videos as being not for kids but the FTC or Youtube thinks it is, then they would be fined!
But anyways, just thought I would add that out there.
There are more and more restrictions on everything. I find many of the changes ridiculous. Removing the bell icon, it's the same like now your audience on FB (if you have a fan page) can't see if you publish something.
Well, we have to conform and accept it and look for new ways.
Thank you for sharing this information,
Lenka
I know! It's making it harder and harder on those old youtubers and even those youtubers who are just starting out.
I agree, that the worst thing is removing the bell icon. The audience might still see it on their home page/subscription feed, but they won't get notified when a video is released.
What's ridiculous too is that there will be no commenting on those videos that will be marked as made for kids. There will be no way to grow any kind of rapport with your audience.
I think Youtubers will now think twice about creating family friendly content because of the fine.
But you're right. We're given the privilege of uploading videos for free. We can't really complain. We have to comply.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi
About the other personal rules such as GDPR etc. Is there a good plugin which covers all?
Which plugin do you guys/girls use on your website. I found some and I am willing to pay for the plugin, but need to make sure that I have a good one.
Any suggestions?
COPPA Notices can go in with your Privacy Policy on your blog if they are valid in your country. There are several GDPR plugins you can use, I recommend going with the most used plugins with the most recent updates for security reasons.
I agree with Andy.
But if you would like an idea of what I use, it's a free plugin on my website that has been working great so far and it's called WP GDPR COMPLIANCE.
Hope this helps.. :)
Interesting on one point towards the end of your article is you mention CPM going down if interest-based ads are not shown. COntent based ads build nearly the same levels of conversion and can often be at a high CPC, so I would have to monitor several accounts from before and after to see if that rang true. IBA has simply taken retargeting to a new level and been used to justify web stalking by Google and other ad providers but ads targeted by content are already based on your interest without the added tracking.
Some experimenting would definitely give us the right answer.
But I mention it in my blog because that's what Youtube said is gonna happen.
I think regardless of whether they collect that information elsewhere, it might just be that they will NOT use that information when it comes to kid-friendly videos, even if they watch Youtube on their parents' accounts, for example, and even if retargeting has been used.
Thus, personalized ads would show up on "not made for kids" videos, while different ads will show on "made for kids" videos.
It all comes down to the categorization of the VIDEO being watched, not the account itself. It makes sense to me.
At least, that's what I understand.
Yes using the wrong words or promoting the wrong products to someone under 13 can cause serious issues legally. COPPA is a defense against this by declaring your content as being for a mature audience before there is an issue. WHen you content does focus on children there are spoecial laws to guide you on the journey. Keep it clean and know what you are up against.
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Thanks for the update, Reyhana. I appreciate it.
You're very welcome, Mick.. :)