I make some LEGO videos and post them on Youtube. I'm wondering whether I should flag them as "for kids" or not. Most (if not all) of them are not intended to be specifically for kids, but for all people. They are mostly videos of my MOCs. According to my interpretation of Jangbricks's video on the subject, all LEGO videos (LEGO being a toy) should be flagged as "for kids". Is my interpretation correct? What should I do? Any answers are appreciated.
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1IANAL - but it would seem that yes, you would have to label them as "for kids". Sadly YouTube doesn't seem to offer any additional ratings beyond "18+", so you can't even add any additional gradients to it. I'm wondering whether official South Park or Adult Swim content will also have to be marked as "For Kids" as they include "characters, celebrities or toys that appeal to children, including animated characters or cartoon figures"...– Zhaph - Ben Duguid ♦Nov 16, 2019 at 10:51
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2I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about LEGO, but about Youtube rules and law interpretation. I'd suggest asking this question on Law Stack Exchange.– zovitsNov 18, 2019 at 9:47
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@zovitssupportsGoFundMonica OK, that's fine.– technicguy1Nov 19, 2019 at 0:41
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1 Answer
For the time being, it would be smart practice to mark any videos related to LEGO as "for kids," even if that is not your target audience. At the current moment, we know very little about what quantifies as "for kids," but "toys that appeal to children" most definitely includes LEGO. I suspect that we will learn more in the coming months as literally millions of YouTubers try to figure out what their content should be categorized under. At the moment, the risk is simply not worth it. Video deletion, Channel termination, and being fined large amounts of money are all possible if I read everything correctly. With that all said, I am not a lawyer, so I highly recommend you go ask the folks over at the Law Stack Exchange.
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I'd rather say it's not worth the risk marking anything as "for kids" unless you're certain that under whatever the law and its interpretation by google turn out to be it's indeed "safe for children".– jwentingNov 18, 2019 at 6:50
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@jwenting I disagree. The risk is in marking it as "not for kids" and then the FTC deems that it should be marked "for kids." This could result in possible channel termination or substantial fines up to 43 thousand dollars per video. Of course, there are downsides to marking your video as "for kids," no comments, no likes, not searchable, no notifications, -90% revenue, no endscreens, etc. But those are just negatives. The actual "risk" lies in marking it as "for kids" and the FTC decides you were wrong.– MagnusNov 21, 2019 at 0:30
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Not really. The risk is marking something "for kids" that is deemed to be "offensive" or "violent" or "otherwise inappropriate for children" and therefore in violation of COPPA. It's never wrong to be overly cautious and disallow access to children, but one slipup and a child may see something someone deems "inappropriate" and you're in all kind of trouble. It's the same with movies and television programs.– jwentingNov 21, 2019 at 4:21
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@jwenting "Kids seeing something inappropriate" has absolutely nothing to do with COPPA. COPPA protects children's information from being gathered. YouTube thought they were fine because they require everyone to be 13 years old to sign up on YouTube, but they still got fined 170 million dollars for violating the law. Why? Well, the FTC saw that YouTube clearly knew that children were on their platform, since there is a lot of content that is made specifically for children. YouTube collects data about their users, and since YouTube was aware that some of those users were kids, they were fined.– MagnusNov 21, 2019 at 17:51
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@jwenting Furthermore, if you mark a video as "for kids" no data about the users will be collected, as it is illegal, under COPPA, to collect data about children. On the other hand, if you mark a video as "not for kids" YouTube will collect data about the viewers. If the FTC deems that you marked your video incorrectly, you can be fined large amounts of money, since you allowed a child's data to be collected. COPPA does not have anything to do with what is "appropriate" for children. It's protecting children's data from being collected.– MagnusNov 21, 2019 at 17:54