Family Tech Blog

Tag: content creators

  • YouTube’s Children Privacy Policies Causing Content Creators to be More Crude in their Videos

    YouTube’s Children Privacy Policies Causing Content Creators to be More Crude in their Videos

     

     

    I am an avid YouTube viewer. I get most of my entertainment from the video streaming service, watching gaming videos, D&D streams, and educational tutorials. I have noticed a trend since YouTube changed its policies for creators to be more responsible for their channel’s content as it pertains to advertising to children. 

    Since YouTube cannot collect viewer data from videos that are intended for children, the company has asked creators to label whether their videos are for kids or not. They are also using an algorithm to view popular videos and identify the content as meant for kids or not meant for kids. This algorithm has content creators concerned for the viability of their channel. This has caused them to be more blatant with crude content and swearing in order to make it very obvious to this algorithm that their video is not meant for children.

    One YouTuber that I enjoy watching, partially because he isn’t overly crude, has been starting his videos with strings of swear words and jokingly saying “This video isn’t for kids YouTube, just be aware, not meant for children.” One of the reasons he feels the need to say this so blatantly is because he plays video games on his channel that may appeal to children. The images of the game alone could lead a person or artificial intelligent software to believe the video was made for children even though that isn’t this creator’s main target audience. Another YouTube content creator that I know has lamented on social media that his channel, which is family-friendly, has lost hundreds of dollars monthly in revenue since YouTube changed their policies. 

    SirWillow is a Family-Friendly YouTube Channel with nearly 30,000 subscribers and over 4 and a half million views.

    1. Would you be willing to tell me a percentage your ad revenue went down when YouTube changed their policies?

    I’m still waiting to see how it all sorts out, but right now in my case I’m looking at about a 30% drop, but it’s in a state of flux. What will be telling will be the end of January when the full force of the new policies kicks in.

    1. How have the changes to the ad policy changed your process for making videos?

    In my case, it hasn’t changed any of my process.  But I may not be the norm in that regard. I know several that do YouTube “full time” and for them, it has meant some drastic changes.  I know at least one that is likely going to shut down, another is cutting back on YouTube to increase time in other projects. For me, it’s been a hobby that has brought in a part-time job income, and while the income has dropped it’s still going to fit the same role.  It has meant a change in how many videos though. I am cutting back my production some from 10-12 videos a month to closer to 7.

    1. Your videos are “family-friendly.” Do you think that YouTube is becoming a less friendly place for families in general or is it mostly up to creators?

    I absolutely think YouTube is becoming less family-friendly, and these changes are going to directly impact that and make it worse.  The changes are going to pretty much destroy financial benefits for anyone producing kid-focused videos, and there are a lot of family-friendly channels that are going to get caught in that backwash and cut back or stop producing. It’s also going to be harder to find kid and family-friendly videos because of all of the blocks that will remove them from the normal algorithms that recommend videos.

    And there are a number of producers who have, as you mentioned, increased cursing and crude language, along with images and subjects to make it clear that they aren’t “kid-focused”  It’s going to make it hard to find, and hard to produce and make money, kid and family-friendly content.

    My thanks to SirWillow for answering these questions for me. He does videos about theme parks and what it has been like working at theme parks. Go check out his channel!

    What Parents Should Know

    It should be very clear by now that YouTube isn’t intended for children. It is becoming harder and harder for people who make videos for kids to sustain a profitable channel on the site. This is causing some different reactions. Some kids’ channels are switching to a subscription method where you can sign up to pay monthly for more content from them. Others are changing to Facebook or Twitch because of their less strict ad policies. 

    The only real way to be sure your kids aren’t watching videos that aren’t intended for their age is for you to control what they are viewing. Legally, our young kids (under 13) are supposed to be using only apps intended for their age group. The legal responsibility, however, doesn’t fall to our kids or even us as their parents, it falls to the company. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines have been handed out by the FTC for companies illegally collecting data from children. They are being investigated and forced to make changes. The changes seem like they should be good for the safety of our children but so far they are only truly helping protect the company from the repercussions of disobeying child safety laws.

    When the safety measures protect only from advertising info being collected, they may be intended to protect children but in practice, they seem to be increasing the volatility of the content on the service while only protecting the service itself. Parents are the only true guardians of our kids’ hearts and minds. The only way to protect them from adult content and crude language on the videos they watch are to take responsibility for their screen time ourselves. Here are some tips:

    • Only allow screens in a public area. 
    • Limit headphone use so you can hear what they are watching.
    • Build playlists on YouTube to ensure they are only watching videos meant for kids.
    • Use apps like PBS Kids or DisneyPlus to keep them watching family-friendly videos.
    • Use YouTube kids instead of YouTube; while not foolproof its a far better option than basic YouTube. 
    • Limit the amount of time watching videos; the more time spent on YouTube the more chance of coming across inappropriate content.

    Parents should take the steps necessary to protect their children online. Companies should be held responsible for their advertising practices and the content on their sites and apps but the responsibility for protecting our children falls strictly to parents. When the measure taken by companies to protect kids backfire by causing creators to lose money unless they swear, use violent and sexist language, or show adult images on their videos, the measure don’t protect our kids, they make the app more dangerous. Parents are the gatekeeper. Protect your children. 

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  • Here’s How YouTubers and Streamers Make Money

    Here’s How YouTubers and Streamers Make Money

    The top earners from YouTube have been released in an article from Forbes and on the top of the playlist is a seven year old boy who opens and plays with toys on his channel. Ryan Toysreview features short videos that include product unpacking, play, challenges, and of course, seven year old Ryan. His videos each have view counts in the millions and that has amassed an estimated 21 million dollars to him during the past year. Ryan and his family aren’t the only content creators creating million dollar companies out of their videos. The top ten list includes vloggers, make up artists, and gamers, all who post weekly to daily videos and rack up millions of views on each one.

    When I speak to parents about the kind of money gamers and other content creators can make on YouTube and Twitch I see their eyes open wide with wonder. They have no clue how doing something like gaming or unpacking toys can result in millions of views, much less millions of dollars. There are several ways that online content creators make money, some are fairly conventional and some may surprise you. Here’s a quick breakdown for those of you who can’t imagine making internet videos as a career choice.

    Traditional Advertising

    Pretty much all YouTubers “monetize” their videos. This means that they allow YouTube to put ads into their content and then get paid a little bitty bit every time someone sees a video or clicks on an ad banner. The rules and settings for this form of advertising is always changing and can often be frustrating to deal with. For instance, if your videos contain any content that belongs to someone else, the YouTube algorithm can sometimes flag your content as “demonetized.” That means, while your fans will see your videos, you won’t be able to make any direct ad income from it. Or, in some rare circumstances, you will have to share ad income. Below is a video that I made with my family a couple of years ago, it is a parody of a song by One Direction. Since the music is copyrighted, my video was demonetized even though the lyrics were all changed to fit our family parody.

    Product Placement/Sponsorships

    These regulations can be a pain for some content creators and so they choose to use other methods of advertising. Product placement and sponsorships are becoming some of the leading examples. There are many ways YouTubers and streamers can make their content fit with sponsorship deals. Channels that feature trick shots and other sports topics will be sponsored by active wear companies or stores that sell sports equipment. Our channels and blog are affiliated with sites and software that help parents with accountability monitoring and filtering.

    Sometimes these sponsorships are soft or quiet which means they just have the equipment or products in their videos without much mention other than maybe in the video description. Mostly, though, you’ll see content that is made as a special sponsorship video or series and many times they’ll be labeled as “sponsored” by the creators. This is very common in unboxing or gaming videos where the creator is opening toys that were sent to them for free (maybe also with some form of financial payment) to highlight that toy or gamers are playing and doing commentary on a game that they got access to a week before release to build hype for the upcoming sales of the game. Our article and video featuring Botley was one that we were able to do because the company sent us the coding robot to play with and write about.

    Direct Viewer Support

    Finally, we come to direct viewer support. This method is indicative of the time we live in where people are drawn towards benevolence and away from fees and subscription pricing. People also prefer not to have products pushed on them in a non relevant way like commercials on TV or even in-line ads during a YouTube or Facebook video. This direct viewer support is a way for those who enjoy a creator’s content to literally give back to that creator and support them in their effort to make their videos full time. Gamers will stream live on Twitch.tv for six to eight hours several days a week and their viewers will reward them with small donations of a buck, five dollars, or more just to have their screen names read live on the stream. Creators will thank their supporters with mentions called “shout outs” during or at the end of their videos. There are content creators that make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just on their viewer support alone.

    There aren’t many creators who only use one method of monetization for their videos. The combination of traditional online advertising, product placement and sponsorships, and direct viewer support has allowed many gamers, vloggers, make up artists, and more to leave behind a traditional full time job and make internet videos for a living. This is the world we live in now. Entertainment looks a lot different than it did ten or even five years ago. Imagine what it will look like ten years from now.

    What Parents Should Know

    This article is meant to be informative and to answer a question I am asked quite often. There is a world of internet content available to our kids. Some of it is interesting and informative or educational and some of it isn’t meant to be seen by your seven year old. There has been research to show how addictive the short and fast paced videos on YouTube can lead to attention problems and issues at school so limiting screen time is important for our younger kids. As your kids get older, you’ll see their desire to consume web content increase and you will want to give them the freedom to do so more and more. This is good as long as you’ve had boundaries in the past and taught them to be aware of the time they are spending on their phone or computer.

    When your son or daughter tells you they want to play video games or make internet videos for a living, don’t look at them like they are stupid. While not everyone will become a millionaire by making online content, there are many who have made it their full time job (myself included.) Just remind them that many of the things they’ll need to know to be successful they will still learn in school. Let them know that the work of an internet content creator is not easy and the expectations from viewers can be excruciatingly heavy. The most important thing they’ll have to be able to do if they are going to be online for a living is not give up. Tell them to practice that with the things they are into now. Don’t quit that sport, maintain your high grades, keep going to dance or piano classes. Whatever that thing is, learning the ability to see it through will be what can drive them to success in any venture in life. Even if it’s opening toys on videos on the internet.