Question for fellow EQ creators with Youtube content. COPPA

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fcseven XIII, Nov 12, 2019.

  1. Fcseven XIII Journeyman

    Hi all. With Youtube's/FTC's near future enforcement of the COPPA law (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) I was wondering your opinion on Everquest content. Unfortunately information about gaming enforcement related to it has been incredibly vague. Creators that upload content related to EQ know the audience is mostly ages 35+, but gaming is often though of as a younger demographics main activity online. My main fear is that EQ content will be fined as creators may be held liable for each video. I do monetize my content with AdSense but the little I actually make I use to do Premium unboxings and special events for the channel.

    One positive thing is my current analytics. My current analytics have my main audience age at 25-34 years (48.8%) and 35-44 (35.9%). The 13-17 range is too small even to make 1%. I am interested in any other creators opinion. Thank you.
  2. Riou EQResource

    Well EverQuest is rated T for Teen, so by default it is likely not kid friendly, depending on what you show within it

    From what I've seen of other people talking about it it seems to either want to split channel so 1 is kid friendly and 1 isn't, or pick a side and go all in on it and ditch the stuff that doesn't fit anymore

    It seems to mostly just follow basically how TV ratings work or esrb rated games work for most part?

    It also seems like you can still monetize, it seems like kid friendly content will actually monetize worse as it removes comments, personal ads, etc. So it seems to incentivize you to ditch the kid friendly side


    The rough part seems to be if youtubes algorithm puts you in the kid friendly zone, so people are worried about having to add non kid friendly stuff to not be stuck there (like swearing and such to their vids)
  3. Fcseven XIII Journeyman


    Yes. from my understanding you could still monetize but if you don't check the "kid friendly" checkbox and it has content that an outside YouTube algorithm decides is kid friendly then the content creator could be held financially responsible. It's very worrisome to be a gaming creator at the moment. Thank you for the reply.
    Riou likes this.
  4. Riou EQResource

    I guess the solution like some of the content creators are thinking of doing, really is then to just drop a swear word in the video or audio somewhere and it cant be kid friendly then, lol
  5. Bigstomp Augur

    It sounds like you should talk to your own legal council instead of a message board.
    Nennius likes this.
  6. IblisTheMage Augur

    Good luck, keep us posted.
  7. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    I have no idea what YouTube is doing but if you look at the name of the act (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and you look at the act itself (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title15-section6501&edition=prelim), you will see it has to do with collecting data on those under the age of 13.

    If you are not collecting personal information on them, the act does not apply.
  8. Sikkun Augur

    “ Starting in January 2020, if creators mark a video as directed at kids, data collection will be blocked for all viewers”

    Kid being under 13...we have all seen PG-13 movies you can still drop a lot of curse words. But it’s simple, your playing a game rated T with a bunch of adults and your content is targeted at adults. Don’t mark you video as directed at kids.
  9. Riou EQResource


    It looks like in your Youtube Creators studio thing or w/e its called there is an option to force mark all your videos to not kid friendly and update it so your future uploads will be marked not kid friendly too, guess that is the best course now unless you were wanting to go all in on kid friendly content only


    It seems to be something about the federal government thinking youtube doesn't do enough to protect kids so they are forcing them to act now and using COPPA as the reason or something, I'm sure if it didn't apply youtube would fight back harder then just roll over and accept it
  10. Sikkun Augur

    FTC fined them 170 million because of the data collected to have targeted ads is violating the children privacy act. We get this instead of just saying you have to be over 13 to use YouTube.
    Riou likes this.