COPPA & What It Means For Creative Makers

By Lori Jacobs | December 2, 2019 |

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Hi, Lori here, I wanted to share some information on COPPA because I know some people are panicked about this and how it’s going to affect makers, creatives on YouTube.

COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. What this is it protects any child’s information and against predators. In 2013 they amended the law and added cookies to be included in that.

YouTube settled with the trade commission is the federal trade commission, in other words, the FTC Trade Commission and now everyone on YouTube has to classify their channel regarding the law and the privacy. Now, they have fines of $42,530 for each channel that does not properly mark their channel as directed towards children if they are later found out that they were directed towards children.

If a channel owner uploads content to a platform like YouTube, the channel might meet the definition of a “website or online service” covered by COPPA, depending on the nature of the content and the information collected. If the content is directed to children and if the channel owner, or someone on its behalf (for example, an ad network), collects personal information from viewers of that content. ( Kristin Cohen, Assistant Director, Division of Privacy & Identity Protection, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection | Nov 22, 2019 )

To be clear, your content isn’t considered “directed to children” just because some children may see it. However, if your intended audience is kids under 13, you’re covered by COPPA and have to follow the Rule and the requirements.

The Rule FTC will consider in determining whether your content is child-directed:

the subject matter,
visual content,
the use of animated characters or child-oriented activities and incentives,
the kind of music or other audio content,
the age of models,
the presence of child celebrities or celebrities who appeal to children,
language or other characteristics of the site,
whether advertising that promotes or appears on the site is directed to children, and
competent and reliable empirical evidence about the age of the audience.

( Kristin Cohen, Assistant Director, Division of Privacy & Identity Protection, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection | Nov 22, 2019 )

What does this mean for us Creatives and Makers on YouTube?

On January 1st if your account is child-directed you will lose end screens and cards, you will lose community tab, comments, you will lose targeted ads, you will lose a lot of the things that most channels use to grow.

This is what I am planning to do this is my personal opinion I am not a lawyer if you need to seek council please do so. You want to remove any videos that would be able to be target children and take them down. For Makers we use it to reach our audience to help get our message out there and how to create and grow our business.

YouTube is still great, and still good social media to use to sell your product and services. You are not using youtube to make your money you are using it to sell your products and services by solving problems with your business. Gaining trust and an audience.

Make sure you are marking the channel and you are careful about what you are posting and being aware of what you are posting. In my Youtube course, we are addressing this and going over this information more in-depth. If you are going to be on youtube you need to know these things and that is why I have invested my knowledge and share everything about Youtube.

Resources:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2019/11/youtube-channel-owners-your-content-directed-children

https://hardworkingmom-school.thinkific.com/courses/youtube-success-in-six

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