In Three Weeks YouTubers Need to be COPPA Compliant — But They Have No Idea What that Means
Creators like Adam Saleh have no idea what 2020 will bring, but YouTube’s new bullying policy gives an idea
Adam Saleh is worried. We are just three weeks away from 2020, and perhaps one of the biggest changes ever to YouTube as the video sharing platform celebrates its 15th birthday. The platform is introducing massive changes to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and they’re affecting creators.
The problem is Saleh, an Arab-American New Yorker who has 4.8 million subscribers, like many others has little idea of what those changes hold.
YouTube has introduced a new designation of video, “Made for Kids”, that will no longer have personalized ads served against it. The platform has complained to the Federal Trade Commission, who fined YouTube a record amount for its COPPA violations, about the vagaries of the rules. But creators are still in the dark.
Saleh has an audience of all ages, including children from the age of around eight to 15, who make up between 50% and 60% of his viewership. “It makes me nervous, because of losing my channel and monetization,” he says. “YouTube changes so many things.”
