As most of us already know, all movies and videogames have a rating dictating for what demographic a product will be. Now recently there’s been some turmoil in the land of entertainment, more notably Youtube, where there’s a bit of debate whether or not the new Youtube update ( COPPA ) and how it will impact videos.

Now let’s make some things clear from the start. First, COPPA isn’t something new, it’s been around since 1998 and was designed as a protection against the collection of online data from children under the age of 13. Atleast that’s the short version ( read more in detail here ). I’m not going to re-itterate the entire wiki page, because that’s not the focus of this article. I will be talking about the use of restrictions and how most of the time they play out for the consumer.

So why are Youtube content creators a bit fuzzed about COPPA? It’s always been there, so how could it affect new content right? Well it has to do with the nature of how some channels and companies are today, how they try to monetize videos and products with shall we say less than morally justified means. The new COPPA update is to prevent truly predatory tactics being used to lure in young viewers or to make them buy ingame products through microtransactions. Atleast that’s what I percieve as the objective of the update.

For the moment there are 2 ways to make a lot of money by gaining a younger audience. Children have always been a great source of income for companies ever since toys have existed. But in this age of digital products it becomes a bit harder to regulate what can be sold or made money from at the expense of children. So what are those 2 ways right now?

1- If you are on Youtube, you might make it big through time and effort or you could just start a ‘kids-friendly’ channel. There are quite a few now, ranging from simple children toys reviews, to puppet shows and to sadly enough clickbait videos specifically aimed at children. Youtube has dealt with some of those clickbait channels already, but it seems people keep finding ways to get around the system. So they simply lure younger viewers knowing the contents of the video aren’t per se interesting or even kid friendly, but kids being kids, they let the video play out and that get’s the channel views and view time and thus the get paid for it. That’s where the COPPA update comes into play. It forces Youtubers to tell Youtube whether or not their videos are suitable for kids. By doing this it makes it easier to check those videos for any violations of COPPA. If one says a video isn’t suited, then it won’t be shown to children, atleast that’s what I hope ( we are talking about Youtube after all and they’ve been known to say one thing and do another ).

2- The second method isn’t directly linked to Youtube, however it will become more clear why it’s still part of the COPPA update. Youtube also has a lot of gaming content, some of which have microtransactions showing ingame. With the crackdown on these kinds of practises by several countries, as it is seen as gambling more and more, channels with gatcha content. Gatcha games are mostly mobile games downloadable for free, but with paid content ( read gambling like mechanics ). Often these games are bright and colorful, the fact that they’re free to download makes them even more appealing to younger audiences. For a company a gambling customer is worth more than a one pay deal. “Yeah you could get that car for maybe 10 bucks, but you could also get this ultra rare car too, you just got to keep trying and spending money for a chance at it.” If adults are easily addicted to gambling, what might it do to kids, is what COPPA is saying right now.

So what does this all have to do with age ratings and restrictions? Well, ratings have always been there as a guideline. Yes it’s true that you can not sell a product to a person if they are not of the right age, however in practice there’s some flexibility as long as the product does not harm a person their health. And we all know that even if they did uphold it in the most strict way, parents or someone else they know who’s old enough would buy it for them.

If you ask me, I’ve always found those age restrictions to be weird. You could see a horror movie if you were 16 or older, but play Grand Theft Auto and you had to be 18 or older. yes different media, but both have violence in it ( you could argue potential drugs in the GTA franchise, but let’s be honest… it’s always about the violence in media ). But in today’s world, if you create content, it’s always a gamble if your content will still be kids-friendly enough. Even if your target audience aren’t kids. And if you keep in mind that a big part of Youtube’s audience is already an adult, who grew up with a much more free platform, it gets even weirder the longer you think about all the ‘protection’ online for children. The real question is, will this protective behaviour be a good influence on the children or not?

Besides, if you really want a solution that works for everyone equally, I might have a simple idea. We all have ID’s, so you want to make an account that’s age verified? Get an E-reader device, plug in your ID as a mandatory registration step and verify your age. If you’re to young, certain content will be locked untill you’re old enough. On the other hand, content can be created and shared without restrictions or fear for backlashes because the wrong audience saw it. If we had this system in place, there would never been an adpocalypse on Youtube, there’ wouldn’t be any uncertainty for content creators and there wouldn’t be a need for handholding parents either, because responsibility would lie with them 100%.