RIKKI POYNTER: If you care about having educational content
readily available to you and also the future of deaf creators,
this video is going to be for you.
Hello, and welcome back to the channel.
So let's talk about YouTube and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
and why I'm worried about it.
I'm worried that this is going to make things
much more difficult for hearing and deaf people,
especially deaf children, to learn sign language online.
And also, find deaf and sign language-related content to enjoy.
And this affects deaf creators such as and not limited to
ASL Nook, Deafies in Drag, Bill Vicars, ASL Hawaii,
Signed with Heart, Deaf Japan TV, and more.
These channels either have children directly involved in their videos
or they have something that could possibly
attract children to these videos.
And also me, because I talked about "childlike" things in my videos
and I have them sometimes in the background of my videos
or I'm wearing a T-shirt that has these types of things printed on them.
So, come January 2020, some of these creators
can be expected to lose 60-90% of their revenue
and they may be forced to give up pursuing a career on YouTube.
So there are two kinds of ads on YouTube:
Contextualized and personalized.
Contextual ads are generalized ads served based on the topic of the video.
And personalized ads are served based on the viewer's habits.
So, what videos they're watching
or what products they're looking up on the internet.
And 90% of the revenue generated on YouTube is from personalized ads.
So, what exactly is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act,
AKA 'COPPA' or 'cope-ah' as it's also been pronounced?
Basically, people aren't allowed to
collect private information on children on the internet
without explicit parental consent.
And this has to be done either by phone, fax or email, with digital signature
or via a letter delivered through the post office.
COPPA was passed in 1998 to deter predatory advertisers
and it was revised in 2013 to include cookies or "persistent identifiers"
and personalized ads, also known as "behavior ads".
So, COPPA is a 20-year-old law and YouTube knew about this.
And for a while, six years ago, YouTube was given immunity
for a mixed audience.
But then in 2018, parents started getting concerned,
that started getting more and more,
because they were noticing some odd patterns going on.
The FTC uncovered email exchanges between Hasbro and Mattel
and they also uncovered promotional materials for advertisers
that highlighted YouTube as the number one website for children
between the ages of 2 and 12-years-old.
They beat Disney and Nickelodeon.
And YouTube deliberately promoted two incredibly popular
YouTubers that we have right now.
Jake Paul, who admitted to selling shirts to children
between the ages of 8-14 years old,
and Ryan ToysReview who had an FTC complaint filed against him
earlier this year for targeting preschoolers.
And in September,
YouTube was found guilty of violating COPPA with a decade of perjury
and fined $170 million.
So why is YouTube at fault?
YouTube develops profiles based on our age, gender,
preferences, finances, et cetera
based on the types of videos that we watch
and how we interact with our favorite creators.
And YouTube purposely catered personalized ads
to viewers who they knew were children.
Saying that you're 13 years or older
when you're signing up for a YouTube account is irrelevant,
as you can watch videos without an account.
And adults and babysitters, et cetera were allowing children
to watch YouTube completely unsupervised.
Now, YouTube is not the only platform
that's being forced by the FTC to comply with COPPA.
TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform
was threatened to have their app removed from American stores
because they didn't comply.
And in response to that, Chinese social media apps developed an algorithm
that can detect if a viewer is a child
and they interrupted serving ads to children at a user level
instead of putting the burden on the creators.
So, the FTC does allow mixed audience content
to be enjoyed by everyone of all ages.
So, like TikTok, Netflix and Facebook,
which has measures to detect if a viewer is a kid
and they can age-gate the content.
However, because YouTube wants to continue to collect data
from children by pretending that they're consensual adults,
YouTube is forcing independent content creators to designate
whether or not their video is for kids.
Now, YouTube could allow a middle ground of mixed audience exceptions,
but them acknowledging that option means that YouTube becomes responsible
for turning off personalized ads for viewers expected to be children
on a per individual basis.
Now, the problem is that YouTube is responsible for gathering data
on who watches our content
and for recommending videos to viewers based on their watch history.
We, the content creators, have no idea who is watching our videos,
what they previously watched, what videos are served alongside ours,
or what ads are shown on our videos.
Nor can we easily opt out of certain types of personalized ads.
There's no way for us to find out if YouTube's marketing department
is pitching us to advertisers without our explicit consent.
If our videos are being shown alongside kids' content
or being watched by children, we have no idea
and YouTube refuses to share this information with us,
the independent creators.
So YouTube will be rolling out an algorithm to detect children's content
and while Commissioner Slaughter recommended a "technological stopgap",
Chairman Simon and Commissioner Wilson dissented against the proposal.
And Commissioner Chopra and Director Andrew Smith acknowledged
that YouTube's decisions will harm the quality of content
as well as small businesses
and they recommend relaxing the protocols.
And the FTC does not require YouTube to self-police creators.
And the new algorithm is stress-inducing
because each of us have false copyright claims filed against us,
have false community strikes and have been demonitized out of context.
And it took two years for AI to stop falsely demonitizing creators.
False positives happen all the time and continue to happen.
I'm concerned that deaf creators won't be able to produce educational content
or independent entertainment media
and now will be forced to have to pursue a different career path.
We need deaf-centric stories, movies, lessons, et cetera,
available to everyone of all ages.
It will prevent language deprivation.
They help deaf people make friends and develop self-esteem,
they help us maintain a community,
and help us feel like we have a sense of belonging.
You know, things l was searching for years ago.
And I found that stuff here and elsewhere on the internet.
If you want to help, you can sign the petition
that will be below in the description box
and let the FTC know what your thoughts and concerns or feelings are on their website.
But know that the FTC is not the enemy here.
If you want to know more about deaf creators and get more videos from us,
please hit that subscription button and hit the notification bell
so you don't miss out on any future uploads.
If you want more original deaf-created content from yours truly,
then please consider being a pledge on my Patreon.
And there you'll find more exclusive videos, writings, merch discounts.
It always helps me out.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video.
I really appreciate it.
Translation link, if you would like to help out with translations,
will also be down below in the description box.
Again, thank you for watching and I'll see you later.
Bye.