Threatening email from YouTube?

Mister No

When I post my videos to YouTube, I always choose the "not for kids" setting, as there are only two possible options ("for kids" and "not for kids"). I do this because I believe that my videos are for everyone, not just children. In addition, if the video is marked as "intended for children", then no comments are possible on that video.

Today, however, I received an email from YouTube stating:

Hello, Mister No,

We would like to inform you that we have manually reviewed your content and determined that it is intended for children based on our policies. Therefore, in the following video, we've updated your audience setting for "Kids":

Video: THOMAS & FRIENDS - ALL ENGINES GO 29: Percy's Passenger Run | Push Along Set

If you think we made a mistake, click the video link above on your computer and follow the instructions. You need to be logged in to the following account: Mister No

From now on, check your audience settings for your channel and / or individual videos. Regardless of your location, you must comply with the provisions of the Children's Internet Privacy Act (COPPA) and / or other laws. If you don’t set the right audience for your content, you may face legal consequences or consequences on YouTube. We can also take action at the channel level, which may include closing the channel if we find recurring errors or abuse.

Additional information on child content guidelines can be found in the following resources:

FTC Guidelines for YouTube Channel Owners
Children's Internet Privacy Act (COPPA)
YouTube Help: Determining whether the content is intended for children
YouTube Help: Set audiences for a channel or video
YouTube Channel for Authors: COPPA Compliance

If you have additional questions, you can contact us here.

With respect,
YouTube team

They are referring to this video of mine.
But actually, they could have taken just about any other.

"From now on, check your audience settings!" What a language!

They manually reviewed my video? And then they come with the undisguised threat: "If you don’t set the right audience for your content, you may face legal consequences or consequences on YouTube. We can also take action at the channel level, which may include closing the channel if we find recurring errors or abuse."

What have I done to deserve such threats? Additionally, YouTube deleted all comments below the video in question and locked it, i.e. disabled comments.

So there are two things: (1) their Guidelines, and (2) the law in question. I consider it completely unacceptable to threaten someone with legal consequences for violating the law, without even stating which article of the law in question has been violated. This behaviour is disturbing because it causes legal uncertainty. Anyone who breaks any law must know what he is accused of before any action is taken against him. Given the above, it seems that those on YouTube do not stick to that.

Legal uncertainty is also fuelled by their “guidelines” because everything there is written using broad general clauses under which much can be subsumed. In other words, something similar can happen to almost anyone.

Its rules explicitly state the following: Content intended for all is content that may be appealing to all audience groups but is not specifically intended for children, or content that is intended for teenagers or older audiences. Content intended for all should be set as "not intended for children". I firmly believe that my videos fall into that category. They obviously don't.

Now what? When they “manually review” videos, if they think the content is “child-friendly,” they may decide to "update" video settings and are free to send such threats to YouTubers.

If they find "recurring errors or abuse" (again, language!), as they marked my actions, they could close my channel. Does this mean that I should now review 182 of my videos again, guess which of them the “YouTube Team” might think are intended for children and change the settings accordingly, or face the legal consequences and deletion of my channel?

Since there are indeed a lot of videos like mine, and many of you record similar videos yourself without marking them as "intended for kids", I would like to ask you:
Have you ever received a similar email from YouTube?
Did they "updated" your video settings to "Kids"?
If so, did you appeal the decision and with what result?

Thank you.

Super

Mr No

I moved this Thread down to a Forum that is for Members only as we wouldn't want the general public reading what any member has to say on this subject. Meanwhile it may be of benefit to anyone to review a Thread from a couple of years ago when this all started.
https://blueplastictracks.com/showthread.php?tid=3958&highlight=coppa

PerkyHydrAan

Why would they do this? it's ok, if kids don't see it, and if kids see it, with their parents accounts, maybe. i think this is unnececary and i am so confused.

Mister No

I remember that thread, Super, I even participated there. But this is a whole new situation. This time they not only changed my settings to "intended for children" and deleted the comments, but also sent me a rather offensive email, with direct threats. Attention should be paid to the tone and manner of communication. Let's see how they write:

From now on, check your audience settings
If you don’t set the right audience for your content, you may face legal consequences or consequences on YouTube
We can also take action at the channel level, which may include closing the channel if we find recurring errors or abuse.

What kind of language is that? I find it disturbing. And only because I made a nice little video with nice music and tried to brighten the day for my fellow collectors and my friends (among whom there are no children) in these difficult times in which we live? The biggest fans of my videos are my elementary school friend (53) and my mom (81) and I get a threatening email from YouTube for not posting my video as "intended for kids"?! For God's sake!

Threats of sanctions for breaking very strange, vague and stretchy laws, which anyone can interpret as they wish (arbitrariness), are a path to legal uncertainty. I have been charged with "abuse" without stating the exact article of the Act which I allegedly violated. An unnamed "Team" decided that I had violated an unnamed article of a law. This is a very, very dangerous and disturbing legal situation.

What happens in the opposite situation? What if someone marks a video as "intended for children" and an unnamed, unknown "YouTube Team" decides that the video is not intended for children? I've read all the rules, and it's always possible for the "YouTube Team" to decide that you've tagged a video incorrectly. No matter what. It happened to me now, but it could have happened to anyone, anytime.

This is no law. It can't be. It's a disgrace. And yes, I think I have the right to say that as a lawyer, now honorably retired, who has been successfully practising law as a military judge for 23 years.

MuddyPoppins

Yep Mister No, they have been doing the same thing to me for months now!
It seems like two or three times a month now their “content bots” will randomly re-classify one of my videos as “made for kids”, and remove the comments.
They give me the option to “accept” their ruling or “appeal” it, but I have just been letting them pick me apart, because they haven’t attacked any major videos, and I don’t want to draw any real scrutiny to my content by appealing, even though only 9% of my audience is under 18, or so their own analytics say…
It’s a real bummer of a conundrum because I truly enjoy having the open comments to talk to other people. :/

Mister No

Oh, look... I participated in and survived the Croatian Homeland War 1991-1996. I live only 355 miles from Ukraine (Слава Україні!), where tanks trample people and destroy the civilization, and I'm fully aware that very soon this war could come to me. A six-ton Soviet projectile fell 5 miles from my house less than a month ago (which few in the world even noticed, and no one cares about, NATO included). In at least two neighboring countries that surround me live people who wholeheartedly support Russia and Putin in the current war and want to conquer my country, in which they have succeeded a few times in the past. Cheers!

So no, I don't care about and I’m not afraid of some petty butchers of the law like those guys from YouTube. It's ridiculous. I just wonder what kind of people on the eve of a very possible world war find it appropriate to write rude emails and make threats to someone who just posted a little video about Percy. :s

MuddyPoppins

Well Mister No, the answer is right there in your question.

Who are “those guys” (at YouTube)
“What kind of people” are they?
Why are they doing this/their motivation/end game?
Things are not as they seem.
“What kind of people are those guys at YouTube?”

Super

I think its just YouTube not wanting to violate the Coppa, (not that I agree with it). Kids are going to find a way to watch it anyway so why not come up with a better way like not being able to monetize it, prevent themselves (YouTube) from running Ads on the video and prevent them from gathering viewing information on it as this looks like the biggest reason the Law has been enforced.

It seems to have started because of YouTube (Google) got caught a couple years ago when they were breaking an US Law about gathering information on minors. They were collecting information on all YouTube viewers as far as their likes and directing Ads specifically for their interests and views through an algorithm that YouTube had in place. While this is OK for adults it is against a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Law about protecting children, COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). YouTube was fined 1.7 Million Dollars and they instructed that any further abuse would result in more sever punishment. The FTC also said that they are not going to rely on YouTube monitoring their creators alone and that they will be monitoring and fining them AND the YouTube creators. Meaning that the FTC will COME AFTER US and not YouTube if the creator labeled their videos as not for kids. This is where the Law is very vague. The FTC says a video that a child MAY Show Interest in will be in violation if its not labeled for kids. This is where most have a problem as its not specifically defined as what Interest means as a child could be interested in real cars, building houses or science for example.

Mister No

This is a very important question. The old Latin principle says, "Dura lex, sed lex" (literally: The law is harsh, but it is the law), which means that the law, whatever it may be, must be obeyed. Everything else leads to anarchy.

Therefore, I sincerely want to obey the law, but in this case it is almost impossible. When the rules are not clearly set, and their violation is decided by some committee as it pleases, it is arbitrariness.

That this is so is best shown by the fact that the “YouTube Team” singled out one of my videos and “updated” settings of that video. They could have done it with any other video, mine or someone else’s, because the rules listed are so imprecise, stretchy, and vague.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t monetize my videos, but YouTube still places ads in them, even in the one they changed to “intended for kids”. I checked! Doesn't that mean that they are the ones who break the law and their own rules (guidelines)?

I have no problem labelling any of the videos as “intended for children,” though I don’t think any of them are really intended for children alone. But how do I know that "YouTube Team" won't say tomorrow that I committed "abuse" again and mislabelled a video? Because it depends not on the legal norm, but on their arbitrary opinion. Absolutely absurd.

Because both I and anyone who makes videos like these can't know in advance what the "YouTube Team" will decide in a particular case (because their arbitrary decisions are based on imprecise norms) so anyone can be accused of "abuse", a practical question arises: how to label videos like this?

Clearly, YouTube wants to shift responsibility for possible abuses to users (so that they are not held accountable). Fine. But who set them up to decide whether the Law was broken? Should not the violation of the law be decided by the competent state institutions, i.e. courts?

So how to label a video? A video that a child may show interest in will be in violation if it's not labelled for kids, so almost all videos should be labelled as such, because kids show interest in a very wide variety of subjects, right? 🙂

MuddyPoppins

Speak of the devils themselves…
They just hit my #1, 4, 7,8,9,10 most viewed videos…
Gone are all of the comments. 🙁
I vow that I will find a way to continue to communicate with fans and subscribers, but YouTube, as far as a “community” has lost my respect and just made a serious adversary.

GreatGordonFan

Muddy Poppins wrote
Speak of the devils themselves…
They just hit my #1, 4, 7,8,9,10 most viewed videos…
Gone are all of the comments. 🙁
I vow that I will find a way to continue to communicate with fans and subscribers, but YouTube, as far as a “community” has lost my respect and just made a serious adversary.

You can announce this problem on your community tab. Everyone will understand

Mister No

Muddy Poppins wrote
Speak of the devils themselves…
They just hit my #1, 4, 7,8,9,10 most viewed videos…

I'm so sorry it happened to you, Muddy. They seem to be conducting extensive "manual reviewing" of the videos...

Did you, like me, receive an email accusing you of "abuse", ordering you to "from now on, check your audience settings for your channel and / or individual videos", threatening you with "legal consequences" and "deleting the channel" or did they simply "updated" the settings of the mentioned videos, switching them to "intended for children" and deleted the comments?

I just wonder how serious are they with threats like these? Are they really prepared to delete the channel if we don't change the settings to "kids"? But if we do (bearing in mind that norms and guidelines are very vague, and they reserve the right to arbitrary interpretation), then they can easily say that the content is not for children, and delete it anyway. Now what?

I was thinking of writing an appeal, but I'm not exactly sure it's the best idea. Someone who is complaining could be seen as problematic by the so called YouTube Team, and then the channel could really be in jeopardy.

What an absurdity that we are even forced to deal with nonsense like this. :dodgy:

MuddyPoppins

Yes Mister No I get the same dumb email each time. They have started flagging 3 at a time now…I think that I will just start cussing and making “inappropriate for kids” comments in my videos.
Then they won’t be “made for children” and they can classify my content as for adults, and the 9% under the age of 18 can just be excluded from my audience.

jessetrains

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I have a channel for real trains. I deleted all of my videos when the new rules came out although I have just started to upload again. I was thinking of starting to upload videos to my Tomy train channel and was considering posting here asking if anyone was having problems with the made for kids thing. I was afraid of getting hit with a large fine, and my videos are just not worth it. I am glad to hear they at least seem to warn you first before taking drastic action. I was not sure how to label my real train videos. I have loved trains my whole life, so I could see kids liking them. To me it seemed confusing as the label is "made for kids" which almost seems to imply that it is based off of who you want to watch your videos which seem not to be the case. When I was trying to understand the the new rules I was very alarmed that one answer I saw several times was "just ask a lawyer what your videos are considered"!!!!! I was wondering as others mentioned what happens if you think that it is for kids, but YT says it is not?!

Mister No

jessetrains wrote
I was very alarmed that one answer I saw several times was "just ask a lawyer what your videos are considered"!!!!!

Ask a lawyer? Well, I am a lawyer, and I'll say it plainly: There is no chance that the right course of action will ever be unequivocally and unambiguously understood when it comes to this issue.

Why? This quote from Super's post says it all: "The FTC says a video that a child may show interest in will be in violation if it's not labelled for kids. This is where most have a problem as it's not specifically defined as what Interest means as a child could be interested in real cars, building houses or science for example."

Now we come to the real question: what is interest? And there is no precise and unambiguous answer to that question. There simply isn't. This had to be determined by the law itself, but it was not. In this way, the regulation brings the one who is obliged to apply the regulation to a very slippery terrain: You should guess this on a case-by-case basis. That is why YouTube has shifted the responsibility for such actions to individual users, so as not to expose themselves to legal consequences (and high fines).

In order to be applicable, the law must be unambiguous and clear. This is not the case here, so they invented so-called YouTube “Guidelines” that should clarify what is considered child-friendly content and what is not. Reading these extensive and very general guidelines, however, only makes things more vague and confusing, so we come to the fact that the ultimate arbiter on this issue is actually a "YouTube Team". This "Team" then interprets the laws as it pleases, completely biased. Therefore, one should not ask lawyers to interpret this situation, because it has nothing to do with law. The ultimate interpretation of this law lays in the hands of an unnamed commitee, which is ridiculous and absurd, and legally very questionable, possibly even rebuttable.

It is wrong to leave the interpretation of the law to some committees for members of whom we do not even know who they are. Really, who are they? Are they lawyers, judges? If not, why do they have the right to prescribe legal norms at all? Who authorized them to interpret the law and make threats of “abuse”?

When it comes to videos with trains (real or model), one thing is for sure: children's interest in such things is very small. This is also shown by YouTube statistics. The vast majority of viewers of my videos are those between the ages of 25 and 54. Here are YouTube statistics on the age of viewers of my channel from 2019 onwards:

[size=x-small](god.=yrs.; I have localized version of YouTube)[/size]

Young people are simply no longer interested in that today. The interest of children and young people in science and technology, satellite launches, life on Mars and hacking websites is significantly higher than the interest in trains.

ThomasSirHandel

There are plenty of other decent video sharing sites you can move to if YouTube is causing trouble. Just post a link to what ever site you move to on your channel so viewers know to go there.

At this point I am not sure why the fandom still bothers with YouTube....

DalaGStanator

That was exactly what I wanted to bring up upon finding this thread, but the main problem is all those other platforms are also forced to comply with COPPA and take the same measures (even if they're not US based or somehow discriminate North American users, which would obviously never do). Because YouTube has always been the no. 1 leading service, the way its' runners reacted to COPPA is seen as the only (good/safe) way to do it (with all the frustrating implications). Even Dailymotion started to mandate that certain videos and channels be "kidded", so I doubt anyone should get their hopes up.

The only solution I can think of for those who want comments would be to make (a) thread(s) for their videos on communities related to their subjects (such as us) and direct any and all feedback to said threads, in hopes someone might create an account simply to show that they care enough. It wouldn't bring back any of the other good features, though.

chrisjo

Youtube have now deleted a bunch of Suzukawa's videos. From Twitter:

bijomaru78

That is crazy! I dread to think what will happen if they come across my channel when it gets a bit more popular (close to 500 subs now).

I've been toying with moving my stuff to Odysee, but it's ripe with videos on controversial topics, right-wing, Russia-apologists etc. so not sure it's the best platform to be invested with.

Any other alternatives apart from hosting it on my own website, at a risk that it will not reach anyone?

Mister No

This is distressing. Suzukawa's videos are so fun! And I'm a 55 years old kid! 😊

Meanwhile, YouTube continues to "manually review" my videos, so they turned my Thomas & Friends All Engines Go videos No. 46 - 49 into "for kids" videos. I don't think this will help, but I've started putting the following in the description of each of my videos:

[size=small][font=Roboto, Noto, sans-serif]REMARK / DISCLAIMER: This video is intended for adults who enjoy watching these little trains, or for people who might find it helpful in purchasing a product. Since this video is not intended for children, if you are 13 or under, please watch with your parents. The videos of this YouTube channel are neither primarily, nor exclusively, nor in any other way intended for children. These videos are aimed at adults, collectors of Plarail and Thomas & Friends Motorized and other model trains, as well as fans of good music from the YouTube Audio Library, which can be heard in the background of most videos. As YouTube statistics show, this channel's videos are mostly viewed by a middle-aged audience. Viewers aged 35-44 represent the largest group (39.9%). Only 2.9% of the audience is made up of viewers aged 13-17 (data of YouTube statistics of this channel as of August 13, 2022). Therefore, the practice of changing the target audience to "intended for children" and deleting comments by the respected, aforementioned service provider appears to be really unnecessary and inappropriate. So please, don't do it. Thank you.[/font][/size]

I would be sorry if they delete some of my videos (or the whole channel, as they threaten in their emails), because I don't store my videos anywhere else. I create them on my mobile phone and delete them after publication on YT, to save phone memory. So I'm thinking of starting to mark my videos as "for kids" so they don't get deleted.