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YouTube will pay up to $200 million after allegedly violating children’s privacy
Critics say the settlement lets Google "off the hook."
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YouTube will pay up to $200 million after allegedly violating children’s privacy
Critics say the settlement lets Google "off the hook."www.theverge.com
I think that's actually awesome, because as far as I'm concerned 25% of the "children's genre" of YouTube videos is mildly exploitative garbage that needs to die in a fire, another 25% is blatantly exploitative garbage that needs to be nuked from orbit, 25% more is creepy-disturbing nonsense whose creators frankly belong in either a mental or penal institution, and the remaining 25% is professionally-produced stuff that either wasn't monetized at all or wasn't made primarily for ad revenue and so will do fine with the reduced money.The platform has made a number of policy changes in response to the pending settlement in recent weeks, most notably instituting an explicit ban on violent or “mature” videos that appear to be marketed toward children. The video service has also banned targeted ads on children’s videos, making the videos significantly less lucrative for creators and threatening an entire genre of YouTube content.
Ryan ToysReview — one of the most popular YouTube channels, with billions of views and more than 21 million subscribers — features an excitable 7-year-old named Ryan unboxing toys and playing with them and going on kid-friendly adventures. The channel, run by Ryan's parents, Shion and Loann Kaji, was YouTube's top earner in 2018, according to Forbes, bringing in $22 million.
But a watchdog group alleges Ryan ToysReview has raked in its profits under "deceptive native advertising" through product placement that youngsters are not able to discern as a sales pitch — a violation of Federal Trade Commission law.
In a complaint filed to the FTC dated Aug. 28, Truth in Advertising accuses the channel of deceptively promoting "a multitude of products to millions of preschool-aged children."
The channel, which has endorsements with a variety of companies, including Hardee's, Colgate and Chuck E. Cheese, does not always disclose that its content is sponsored, Truth in Advertising wrote, and if it does, the disclosures are often "inadequate" — mentioned in voiceovers that last for less than two seconds or flash in text on the screen that many in Ryan ToysReview's audience are too young to read.
"The preschool audience is unable to understand or even identify the difference between marketing material and organic content, even when there is a verbal indicator that attempts to identify the marketing content," the complaint states.
"Such deceptive ad campaigns are rampant on Ryan ToysReview and are deceiving millions of young children on a daily basis," it adds.
Earlier this month, Google, the parent company of YouTube, agreed to pay a record $170 million fine to settle claims over child privacy violations after regulators said the video site illegally collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, then used that information to target them with ads.
Some criticized the settlement as not being harsh enough, including Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra.
“The company baited children using nursery rhymes, cartoons and other kid-directed content on curated YouTube channels to feed its massively profitable behavioral advertising business,” he said in a statement at the time.
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YouTube facing investigation from federal government over inability to protect children
The company is working quickly internally to solve the issuewww.theverge.com
The note at the Verge link saying that critics of the settlement believe that it lets YouTube off the hook - well I can say with around 99% certainty that they are most probably completely wrong about that, and I'll explain why because this whole mess is about to become VERY relevant on the first of January, and a lot of YouTube creators are starting to panic over it.![]()
YouTube will pay up to $200 million after allegedly violating children’s privacy
Critics say the settlement lets Google "off the hook."www.theverge.com
A lot of YouTube creators are coming up with creative euphamisms for COVID19 to avoid being demonitized. On the Game Grumps, they refer to it as the Backstreet Boys reunion tour, and that's turned into a running gag.![]()
YouTube is demonetizing videos about coronavirus, and creators are mad
Creators who cover tech, gaming, and other areas can’t talk about the new coronavirus outbreak.www.theverge.com
Yeah, a lot are 'that thing we can not talk about' or some boring thing. My fave was David Parkman called it The Cool Virus for a time. It has gotten beyond silly though. It is about the only thing anyone anywhere is talking about. The only exception is when talking about something is affected by it. Even my work checkins are now starting asking if anyone has any covid related things going on.A lot of YouTube creators are coming up with creative euphamisms for COVID19 to avoid being demonitized. On the Game Grumps, they refer to it as the Backstreet Boys reunion tour, and that's turned into a running gag.
I'd love to collect a bunch of YouTube algorithm friendly euphamisms for COVID19.
I wish PornHub would start a vanilla site as a competitor to YouTube. They could completely ditch the demonitization model and kick non-advertiser friendly content over to their adult site, where it would still make money. Creators would love it. YouTube is basically stealing their content with this COVID19 demonitization. How can you possibly talk about anything that doesn't have to do with COVID19 nowadays? It's changing how society functions.
I've seen tech tubers (or maybe Bernie Bros?) calling it Voldemort.I'd love to collect a bunch of YouTube algorithm friendly euphamisms for COVID19.
All I see is they allow videos specifically about the coronavirus. Casually discussing or mentioning in the context of an unrelated video is not allowed.I've seen tech tubers (or maybe Bernie Bros?) calling it Voldemort.
But I understand YT has lifted its monetization ban on discussing Voldemort.
I' m sure little boys are fascinated by all the videos of shooting stuff and blowing things up. It would be nice if these videos were demonitized, but I'm dreaming.Category 2: Makers of content that its creators don't want to be classified as child-directed, but for which there's a reasonable fear YouTube or the FTC could decide that it is child-directed even if the creators themselves insist it isn't. These are adults ostensibly making videos intended for adults, but that it just might so happen that due to their content they probably unavoidably attract a fair number of child viewers.
YouTube is automatically deleting comments that contain certain Chinese-language phrases related to criticism of the country’s ruling Communist Party (CCP). The company confirmed to The Verge this was happening in error and that it was looking into the issue.
“This appears to be an error in our enforcement systems and we are investigating,” said a YouTube spokesperson. The company did not elaborate on how or why this error came to be, but said it was not the result of any change in its moderation policy.
But if the deletions are the result of a simple mistake, then it’s one that’s gone unnoticed for six months. The Verge found evidence that comments were being deleted as early as October 2019, when the issue was raised on YouTube’s official help pages and multiple users confirmed that they had experienced the same problem.
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YouTube is deleting comments with two phrases that insult China’s Communist Party
The two anti-communist phrases you can’t say on YouTube.www.theverge.com
YouTube says it has "rolled out a fix" for an "error in our enforcement systems" that had led to the automatic deletion of comments that included two phrases critical of China's government. But in an email exchange and phone call with Ars Technica, a company spokeswoman declined to provide real details about why YouTube's software was deleting the comments in the first place.