> Individual video creators themselves are also now personally on the hook for penalties of up to $42,350 if they fail to explicitly mark their videos as for children, the FTC said in November. This draws concern from creators who consider their content family-friendly but not necessarily child-directed.
The Google blog doesn't go into it, but there are potentially significant fines attached.
I can think of all sorts of interesting cases here. As art, it's perfectly acceptable to remix clips from different children's shows together to make the characters swear or put them in otherwise inappropriate situations.
If I made something like this, I would mark it as targeted at adults. Because it is targeted at adults, it's not meant for children. But if bright colors and recognizable characters in the automatically generated thumbnail attracted a child audience, would I be on the hook with the FTC?
The bad actors here are doing something similar, but they're deliberately trying to attract children to their videos. It's understandable to hope they get nailed by the FTC for this, but it seems (to me) to require discerning intent, which is always hard.
You could mark it as NSFW content, specifically to prevent kids from watching it. A bit of a blunt solution, but then no one sane would argue that you're "targeting" kids!
There is a system for "Mature Content". This generally means age restriction, absolutely no monetization, and pretty serious de-buffs to search results.
Sounds like the problem is YouTube is trying to have their cake and eat it too -- in my opinion, content should either be "adults only" with whatever ads or "family friendly" with only untargeted ads.
Less targeting of ads in general would be a good thing. YouTube makes the rules around monetization and ad rates on their platform, so they just need to rework their business model to, you know, not exploit children.
Here they are. [0] The FTC is perfectly aware that there are edge cases, but they refuse to define them or provide anything but the vaguest possible "I know it when I see it" criteria. If you're still confused after reading their guidance, they've helpfully provided some handy examples to help you in your guessing! [1] Hope you like reading court cases!
> Individual video creators themselves are also now personally on the hook for penalties of up to $42,350 if they fail to explicitly mark their videos as for children, the FTC said in November. This draws concern from creators who consider their content family-friendly but not necessarily child-directed.
The Google blog doesn't go into it, but there are potentially significant fines attached.