Is The YouTube Toy Apocalypse Almost Upon Us???

[JayC]

I am testing out the ability to upload videos directly to the forums here with this post. As to why I might be doing that, watch the video and then share your thoughts.... assuming this test works

[mako]

Honestly, with all the "Content Creator's" out there cashing in on the intellectual properties of others, or posting obscenity as entertainment, I'm disappointed it took YouTube THIS long.

 

[JayC]

Just now, mako said:

Honestly, with all the "Content Creator's" out there cashing in on the intellectual properties of others, or posting obscenity as entertainment, I'm disappointed it took YouTube THIS long.

 

I don't follow?

[80sboy4]

Very informative video Jay C. I surely hope YouTube reconsiders some of these changes, you make a great point about the advertising in videos and without them these videos become a burden for them which is a big concern. These changes, if implemented will force many to find other avenues to showcase their content while others will change the content of their channels altogether.

Well we'll know all very shortly.

[JayC]

So for the test aspect, if you watch it LMK how well it plays for you. Is it pausing in mid-play or choppy or is it playing smooth and clear. I am doing some experimenting here but even though it may seem similar as watching a video from YouTube, the video here isn't streaming like it would if it was coming from YT. Its actually downloading to your browsers cache and playing as it downloads which means if you have a slow internet connection it probably wont play that well for you.

[Darth_Primus]

Thanks for putting up this video, as I heard other Toy Reviewers on YouTube reference the situation but never really talked about it or went into detail like you did.  I watched the video this morning and gave it a like.  

I've seen some of the Toy Reviewers reference their subject of the video as adult collectibles rather than toys or action figures.   It will be interesting to see what steps Google/YouTube take in implementing their new rules in connection with the FCC demands regarding child privacy. 

Hopefully, by clicking the box stating your video (and others in the like) are not targeted towards children prevents ads geared towards children to be attached to your videos and thus, everything else could run as normal.    Moreover, hopefully sets up a separate "Kid's YouTube" platform to ensure that there is a "safe space" for children and distinctly separate for the current YouTube platform.  I believe Netflix has a created such as safe space for children programming.  Additionally, if YouTube provided definite guidelines on how to make videos safe for children to content creators that would be great.   I mean, most of the Toy Reviewers like you, Pixel Dan, Toy Galaxy, etc., create G or PG rated content, that to me, is safe for mostly all ages.

I did find it odd that YouTube said they would turnoff notifications and comment options for certain videos.   It might be up to content creators to tell their viewers not to leave any personal information in the comments to protect the privacy of everyone. 

Thanks for only swearing as an example, not for reasons to make your video not safe for children.   LOL   It was funny to hear you swear though.

 

 

 

[JayC]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:43 PM, Darth_Primus said:

Thanks for putting up this video, as I heard other Toy Reviewers on YouTube reference the situation but never really talked about it or went into detail like you did.  I watched the video this morning and gave it a like.  

I've seen some of the Toy Reviewers reference their subject of the video as adult collectibles rather than toys or action figures.   It will be interesting to see what steps Google/YouTube take in implementing their new rules in connection with the FCC demands regarding child privacy. 

Hopefully, by clicking the box stating your video (and others in the like) are not targeted towards children prevents ads geared towards children to be attached to your videos and thus, everything else could run as normal.    Moreover, hopefully sets up a separate "Kid's YouTube" platform to ensure that there is a "safe space" for children and distinctly separate for the current YouTube platform.  I believe Netflix has a created such as safe space for children programming.  Additionally, if YouTube provided definite guidelines on how to make videos safe for children to content creators that would be great.   I mean, most of the Toy Reviewers like you, Pixel Dan, Toy Galaxy, etc., create G or PG rated content, that to me, is safe for mostly all ages.

I did find it odd that YouTube said they would turnoff notifications and comment options for certain videos.   It might be up to content creators to tell their viewers not to leave any personal information in the comments to protect the privacy of everyone. 

Thanks for only swearing as an example, not for reasons to make your video not safe for children.   LOL   It was funny to hear you swear though.

 

 

 

Yeah Its about how Google gathers information and then uses that information to better target their ads. For instance have you ever noticed when you do a google search for something and then go to a website that runs google ads and you start seeing advertisements for that thing you searched for? That's no accident. Goggle logged your search, and using things like cookies was then able to target those ads specifically to you with the idea if you searched for it there is a good chance you can be enticed to buy it. Now as an adult that is perfectly legal, but for young children it pretty much isn't because they don't know enough to determine whats what.

These laws started back in the 70's I believe and they were used to try and  prevent things like cartoons from being turned into 30 minute commercials for young kids. So for instance when you watched something like GIJoe as a kid, Hasbro wasn't allowed to run commercials for their GIJoe toys during those episodes.

With new media like YouTube the lines have become very blurred and there has been little to know regulation implemented to try and prevent that sort of thing up until now. I believe the fine YT received from the FTC for the 170 million last month was essentially seen as a warning shot telling Google they needed to start doing more to regulate that sort of thing, and in the tradition of a very large corporation with tons of moving parts it seems they are going to act in an over compensating way to make sure they cover their own legal asses and will pick up the pieces of anyone else unjustly negatively effected later on.

In a perfect world this should have absolutely no barring on a channel like mine or anyone who is making content meant for adult action figure or pop culture collectors, but we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where the FTC and suits who run Google are likely not going to know the difference between a channel that covers toys for kids and those that cover it for adult action figure collectors. So at least initially it looks like we all will be lumped in with those channels that target young kids for their audience simply because we feature things like toys/action figures in our content, and I don't think any kind of disclaimer we put up will matter. Again right now YT is indicating they don't care who are intended audience is, they just see toys of some type and are going to go with the assumption thats for kids.

One way of looking at is. Say Hasbro made a new Transformers cartoon for TV, and they did adult themes in the content making it's primary target audience adults who grew up watching the old cartoons but not young kids. If it was on TV, even if they weren't targeting kids with it and did things like have Optimus Prime say the word f#$k,  they would still have to abide by the same advertising restrictions of not being able to run Transformers toy commercials during it simply because the generally public would still view that content as for kids and that kids might be watching.

And I don't think even putting some kind of disclaimer up saying this isn't meant for kids would make much difference because at the end of the day your still dealing with a theme traditionally meant for kids.

 

[K9K1N6]

Damn, this does sound indeed bad, only time will tell what's gonna happen, i did figured that Google would do this whenever i search for something i like and such, but no caring about which toys are meant for children and which for adults? Heck that is gonna be a serious problem, but yeh we'll see what happens next.

[EvilHayato]

I couldnt really fully watch the video as it just kept loading and stopping as it was played and even when i would pause it to let it cache the video more, it would take a minute or two and it would be back to buffering. I also have a pretty decent internet connection and have never had problems like that with any video streaming or the like. From what Ive seen tho, very informative and its going to be interesting to see what comes out of this situation. 

[JayC]

2 minutes ago, EvilHayato said:

I couldnt really fully watch the video as it just kept loading and stopping as it was played and even when i would pause it to let it cache the video more, it would take a minute or two and it would be back to buffering. I also have a pretty decent internet connection and have never had problems like that with any video streaming or the like. From what Ive seen tho, very informative and its going to be interesting to see what comes out of this situation. 

Thanks for the input. If YT follows through and it becomes essentially unuseable for toy reviewers I may try and launch my own ToyTube. Its gonna require us getting a streaming server so videos can actually be streamed which costs money, so would only do it if I think people would use it and if it turely ends up being the ToyApocalypse.

[Thinwheat]

The video was stuttering for me. It would load, then start playing but the audio and video were out of sync. I think a video/streaming platform for toys and collectibles would be cool.