- When it comes to COPPA, the FTC, and YouTube
there is one shock and awe figure that is unavoidable.
$42,530.
And now that video creators are personally liable
on the YouTube platform,
could you be hit with such a fine,
or is this just all click bait?
- [Male] vidIQ.
- [Female] vidIQ.
- [Male] vidIQ.com.
- Hello, I am Rob, and welcome back to vidIQ,
the YouTube tool and channel that aims to educate you
on your YouTube journey.
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(bell rings)
Once again, folks, school is in session.
A little bit of housekeeping first.
This is our sixth video on the YouTube/FTC/COPPA topic,
and I want to ask you directly,
should we continue to make videos on this content,
or move on to something else?
Let us know in the voting poll up here
or in the comments below.
YouTube analytics tells us we're doing a good job.
Our own channel audit tool says exactly the same thing,
along with lots of suggested views
coming from other videos, and I want to make content
while you still have an opportunity as a video creator
to have a voice and make an impact on this discussion,
but I am sensitive to viewer fatigue,
so I'd really appreciate your feedback on this.
And one other thing, I am seeing a lot of comments
that people are just deleting videos,
which seems to be completely the wrong thing to do.
If you're unsure whether your videos
are made for kids or not,
play it safe in the short term
and set that video to Made for Kids.
And then, as we move into 2020
and we get a better understanding
of how we should categorize our content, change it then,
but deleting videos means you're losing the views,
you're losing potential ad revenue.
It makes no sense.
YouTube is not banning you from making content for children.
They just want you to make sure that you know
what you're doing, because you are liable for a fine
if you get it wrong,
and that fine, apparently, will be $42,530 U.S. dollars.
Yes, that's correct, folks.
This number is now actually a search term on YouTube,
littering video titles because a huge number of creators
have got it into their heads
that they will be caught by the FTC
and they will be fined $42,530.
We ourselves have been guilty of using that very figure
in one of our thumbnails,
because it's simple to use and it creates
a headline statement which is almost guaranteed clicks,
but are all of us who are talking about this topic
doing all of you a disservice?
The only way to find out is to check the facts
and go to the source, which is the FTC.
In a document titled "YouTube Channel Owners:
"Is Your Content Directed to Children?"
an FAQ section reads as follows:
What are the possible penalties for violating COPPA?
The Rule allows for civil penalties
of up to $42,530 per violation.
All right, then, some key wording right out of the gate.
This is not a fixed penalty.
You could be fined up to that amount.
If you're a video creator with 100 subscribers
who has never monetized their content,
and you break the COPPA law by accident,
do you think you're gonna be hit with $42,530?
For legal reasons, I don't think I can say no
with 100% certainty, but you know those bacterial wipes
that say that they kill 99.999% of germs?
That's how confident I am that you wouldn't get
a $42,530 fine.
The FTC considers a number of factors in determining
the appropriate amount,
including a company's financial condition
and the impact a penalty could have
on its ability to stay in business.
The vast majority of you watching this video
are not companies, you're independent video creators,
and in the same breadth, not to be offensive,
but most of you are either not monetized
or make very little money from monetization on YouTube.
Because, you see, a lot of what the FTC
are about to embark on with YouTube content creators
is uncharted waters.
Here's a pop quiz.
How many cases has the FTC investigated
which have resulted in fines?
If you said over 10,000, you're wrong.
If you said over 1,000, you're still wrong.
If you said over 100, you are still wrong.
- The $170 million judgment is 30 times larger
than the largest COPPA civil penalty the FTC
has ever previously obtained, and it is 10 times larger
than the civil penalties we have obtained
in all of our 31 prior COPPA cases combined.
- And this is a list of all of the cases,
starting with Google and YouTube at the top.
To put this into perspective,
there are millions of video creators on YouTube,
and if just 1% of those creators violate COPPA,
that's at least 10,000 content creators
the FTC will have to investigate.
Whatever way you look at it, 30 doesn't go into 10,000,
especially when those 30 cases were investigated
over the span of 20 years.
- Once our order has been effective for a period of time,
the commission will conduct a sweep of the YouTube platform,
determine whether child-directed content
is being properly designated as such
in order to ensure that the channels themselves
are complying with COPPA.
- None of us knows what a sweep means in this instance.
It's very unlikely to be people at the FTC
watching every single video that's published to YouTube.
It's likely to be more automated in some way.
- Well, I think that we have a variety of tools
at our disposal to cull through those 23 million channels
in an expeditious way.
It has been successful so far.
I think that, I have no doubt that it will be
similarly successful with respect to YouTube,
despite the large quantity of information on the platform.
- From a very simplistic and somewhat naive viewpoint,
it's all very well and good having an automated system
go through the YouTube content,
but surely, at some point,
if the FTC is going to impose financial fines
on an individual human being, then, at some point,
there needs to be a human at the FTC
making sure that the automated system got it right.
Oh, no, wait.
That's what YouTube does, and they often get it wrong.
And I still can't wrap my head around this.
Just over 30 cases in 20 years
versus 23 million video creators
uploading 500 hours of content every single minute.
How is the FTC seriously going to deal with
all of this content fairly?
And that leads me to believe that a lot of cases
are gonna fall to YouTube's automated machine learning.
I wouldn't be surprised if only a fraction
of the COPPA violations ever hit somebody's desk at the FTC.
They're going to rely on YouTube to police their own content
for many of the creators who are under
a certain number of subscribers or views on videos,
but that is just my opinion.
It's not based on any facts right now,
because it hasn't happened.
We haven't got any cases to look at yet.
And if it is left to YouTube's machine learning
to police your content,
what's much more likely to happen than a huge fine?
YouTube will recategorize your content as Made for Kids.
You'll lose the personalized ad revenue.
You'll lose comments, you'll lose stories,
community tab, all those sort of things,
but you will not get $42,530 fine to pay.
The FTC is not out
to impose maximum fines wherever possible.
They will assess the financial conditions of the violator
and their ability to stay in business.
And for the vast majority of video creators,
that sentence isn't even compatible.
This is not your business, it's your passion.
It's your creative outlet.
It would cost the FTC so much
to fine so many of you so little
for it to not even be worth it,
and when you start to investigate previous cases,
you discover just how much trouble
a company needs to get into.
In this case, a company called I-Dressup
had 2.1 million registered users.
A quarter of a million of them were known to be under 13.
They were fined $35,000.
What would that be the equivalent of in YouTube terms?
Two million subscribers?
In two other cases, the companies had less members
or registered users on their books
but were fined a lot more money.
Today, the FTC has dealt with
established money-making enterprises,
and can only investigate them on a case-by-case basis.
- Our other recent COPPA cases was a multiple of revenue,
what we calculated to be the revenue earned
from targeted advertising with respect to these channels.
- Multiples of revenue from targeted ads
on YouTube channels, that's how the FTC seem to have come up
with the figure of $170 million for YouTube themselves.
Again, for the vast majority of channels
who are really worried about this,
it shrinks the potential fine to a minuscule amount.
Now, I'm not saying this should be applied
to every single channel.
If you take a look at Jake Paul, for example,
a huge channel, well-established, that has been accused
of targeting merchandising sales to children
under the age of 13, those are the types of channels
who want to be looking over their shoulders,
not the typical video creator such as yourself.
So, with all of this being said,
does it convince you that if you continue to make videos
on YouTube, you will not be hit with a $42,530 fine
from the FTC?
If you're still not convinced, all hope is lost.
Enjoy BitYou or whatever it's called.
And I'm not, for one second,
suggesting that this is a fix-all solution.
Yes, children's content creators are still going to be
massively impacted in a negative way
on the YouTube platform.
They have serious questions to ask themselves
as we move into 2020.
I wish you all the best of luck
on whatever decision you decide to make,
but ultimately, YouTube, with its near two billion
monthly active users, aren't going anywhere.
I will still be watching whatever's on YouTube,
and they will be as well.
As always, more content here.
References, resources, and links in the comments below,
and let me know if you want me to make more content
on the FTC, COPPA, and YouTube.
Thank you very much for watching,
and enjoy the rest of your video-making day.