December 2, 2019

Youtube Policy Change : All that content creators need to know

Youtube Policy Change

We all know that kids videos on YouTube get immense views and session time. As content creators, we have been using this Google-owned monetizing entity to structure our businesses and brands. However, due to a major backlash from audiences reporting ‘inappropriate content for kids’ over the past few months, YouTube has been forced to devise a policy that helps it keep a check on all such content. If you are someone who’s into creating videos for kids, it’s critical that you read this article.

Moreover, there’s another imminent policy change that may permanently restrict you from even viewing YouTube videos, so keep reading to know more.

What exactly is the change for kids videos?

According to YouTube, ‘Regardless of your location, all creators are legally required to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and/or other laws’.

With the new kids policy coming into effect from January 2020, all creators have been instructed to mark their videos or channel (if their channel is mainly for kids) as ‘made for kids’. They can even select ‘not made for kids’ so the automated system can easily understand the content.

Enabling the ‘made for kids’ option will disable comments and notifications and put other restrictions on your video/channel. Even if you don’t select the option, YouTube will still tag the video under the specific category through its machine learning process.

You should set it yourself. An automated system might report the wrong video, which can cost you adversely. You can make these changes in YouTube Studio (This feature is not available in Creator Studio Classic).

Will it impact cash flow to your account?

It’s highly likely. The new policy states that YouTube would be restricting personalized ads. Moreover, the viewership of such videos will also go down. This is because the features such as info card, end screen, notification bell, or the option to save videos for watching later won’t be functional when it rolls out the new policy early next year.

So, the revenue coming from personalized ads is sure to dip sharply. However, ads based on context would continue to feature on such videos.

Can YouTube delete your channel/account?

Yes it can, if it feels you are no more ‘commercially viable’ for them. There’s another update coming on December 10, 2019, which is going to affect businesses on YouTube. This is very critical as this could lead to termination of your channel account.

The updated terms of service have a line :

YouTube is under no obligation to host or serve content.

Another sentence on the page goes as follows :

YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account’s access to all or part of the service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the service to you is no longer commercially viable.

Both sentences directly signal that the termination of your account or channel is very much possible. It could be the same for users as well.

There’s nothing one can do to avoid such changes of policy on YouTube. The video platform has increasingly stepped up its policies – which, some say, now support bigger players in the industry and is killing small or budding creators. However, in terms of what kids watch on YouTube, the policy change should give you peace of mind as a parent.

Source

Upcoming changes to kids content on Youtube

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