YouTube is overhauling its children’s content policy, which is believed will have a large impact on the platform and its creators.
The changes were first flagged in September 2019 after Google – YouTube’s parent company – was forced to pay $US170 million ($AU245m) to settle allegations the platform was in violation of the Children’s Online Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
In the new changes, which were announced in a company blog post on Monday, content creators will be required to say whether the content is ‘made for kids’.
Targeted advertising will not run on videos for children, and features such as commenting will be disabled,
Furthermore, data on videos that are ‘made for kids’ will not be collected. The new policy is expected to hurt YouTube’s ad revenue by as much as $US50 million ($AU72m).
The changes will also have a “significant impact” on YouTube’s creators with legal ramifications and individual fines for those who do not adhere to the policy changes.
While YouTube cannot provide legal advice to its creators, it has said it will help “navigate this new landscape” where they can.
The blog post said: “Responsibility is our number one priority at YouTube, and this includes protecting kids and their privacy.
“We’ve been significantly investing in the policies, products and practices to help us do this. Today’s changes allow us to do this even better.”
