Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, Diamond Executive producer with I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech are yet So recently, the YouTube content
Speaker 1: moderation AI made a notable mistake. Artist and writer Chris Straub,
Speaker 1: whom I once interviewed many years ago for an article
Speaker 1: about how web comics work, has made a lot of
Speaker 1: different stuff over the years, and one of his creations
Speaker 1: is a video series called Local five eight TV, which
Speaker 1: is described on the YouTube channel as quote an analog
Speaker 1: horror at four seventies six mega hurts end quote. The
Speaker 1: series relies on a low fi VHS aesthetic which has,
Speaker 1: you know, in a popular style in the horror realm
Speaker 1: for the better part of a decade now, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've seen plenty of examples, such as the game
Speaker 1: series Five Nights at Freddie's or the VHS anthology Horror Stories.
Speaker 1: There are tons of these of this kind of throwback
Speaker 1: to like nineteen eighties era looks and aesthetic for horror. Anyway,
Speaker 1: one of the episodes Stroub created back in has the
Speaker 1: title show for Children and the description on the video
Speaker 1: reads not for children, and the whole stick here is
Speaker 1: that Stroub has gone for a beyond generic title for
Speaker 1: this short. In fact, in the context of the Local
Speaker 1: five eight t V universe, it's the television station the
Speaker 1: Local five eight has show for children listed on its
Speaker 1: on its lineup, and that's just the title, like, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a commentary on this sort of very generic,
Speaker 1: low budget children's program um And the short itself follows
Speaker 1: a cute little cartoon skeleton walking through a cemetery at
Speaker 1: night with the moon overhead as a warbly soundtrack plays
Speaker 1: in the background. The skeleton comes upon an open grave
Speaker 1: and looks into it and sees a less cartoonish skeleton
Speaker 1: inside it, and then continues on its way, and gradually
Speaker 1: the music fades out. We get the sound of wind
Speaker 1: as this cartoon skeleton looks into other open graves. It
Speaker 1: sees a little weird skeletal creature in one that kind
Speaker 1: of mules like a cat, and sees a bottomless hole
Speaker 1: in another, and apparently goes inside it and is walking
Speaker 1: in like a cave with its arms folded as if
Speaker 1: the skeleton is freezing, and it comes upon another open
Speaker 1: grave within this cave and lies down inside of it,
Speaker 1: looking up through the grave to the moon, and then
Speaker 1: transforms into a more realistic skeleton. And that's the end. Now,
Speaker 1: on the whole, it's a pretty tame but creepy short video.
Speaker 1: But Straub knew what audience he was aiming for and
Speaker 1: it wasn't kids. And so even though the title read
Speaker 1: show for children, the description said otherwise. And moreover, Straub
Speaker 1: went a bit further. He used the content settings in
Speaker 1: YouTube to tag the cartoon as an eighteen and up
Speaker 1: video and that was that for a while. Anyway, flash
Speaker 1: forward to this week in twenty two, when Straube discovered
Speaker 1: that YouTube's content moderation AI had mysteriously changed this video's
Speaker 1: setting from eighteen and up to being suitable for children. Now,
Speaker 1: that also means that his short could potentially appear in
Speaker 1: the YouTube Kids app More on that later. Now, clearly
Speaker 1: that's not what Chris Strab wanted. He went on to
Speaker 1: Twitter to reveal this problem, including screen shots of some
Speaker 1: of the issues. He had intentionally flagged his video as
Speaker 1: being for mature audiences. The YouTube moderation AI reverse that
Speaker 1: setting without Straub's input or consent. Moreover, Strab found that
Speaker 1: he couldn't change it back. His ability to switch the
Speaker 1: video away from being flagged as suitable for all kids
Speaker 1: had been grayed out. He could not switch it to
Speaker 1: eighteen and up again, so his only option was to
Speaker 1: file and appeal with YouTube, which he did. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: there are a lot of questions that pop up because
Speaker 1: of this incident. So why would an automated content moderation
Speaker 1: tool be able to reverse an age gated restriction on
Speaker 1: a YouTube video? You know, it makes sense if the
Speaker 1: moderation algorithm detected a video that had no age restriction
Speaker 1: should have age restriction, right like, if a video detection
Speaker 1: system determines this video has got some objectionable material in it,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that it could flag that video and
Speaker 1: change the setting so it's not listed as appropriate for
Speaker 1: all ages. You could understand that maybe the content creator
Speaker 1: could say, oh, no, this is a mistake. Review it.
Speaker 1: You'll see that this content is in fact appropriate for everyone,
Speaker 1: and maybe get that decision reversed. You would think that
Speaker 1: that would be the only way this kind of AI
Speaker 1: would make an error, right like, it would be overprotective,
Speaker 1: rather than potentially reversing a video that had been flagged
Speaker 1: as being eighteen and up as being suitable for all ages.
Speaker 1: So what is going on here? Well, to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of all that, we're gonna have to talk
Speaker 1: about YouTube's shoddy history with content for kids, which goes
Speaker 1: back pretty much to the founding of YouTube. We're also
Speaker 1: gonna have to talk about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's going to be the meat of most
Speaker 1: of this episode. That's also known as Kappa CEO p
Speaker 1: p A and the ridiculous tendency for lawmakers to deem
Speaker 1: anything that animated is intended for kids. That seems to
Speaker 1: be kind of a go to, which you would think
Speaker 1: by now people would realize that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: In fact, I mean, I'm going to talk about this
Speaker 1: again later, but animation has a very long history of
Speaker 1: being a medium for different age groups. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are old cartoons that were never meant to be shown
Speaker 1: to kids. And we're also going to talk about the
Speaker 1: business of online video because that plays a big part
Speaker 1: in it too. So let's start with Kappa because that
Speaker 1: actually predates the launch of YouTube. You know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of people heard about Kappa, maybe around definitely
Speaker 1: more around twenty because that's when it was really having
Speaker 1: a huge impact on YouTube. But in fact, KAPPA was
Speaker 1: initially passed in and was enacted on April twenty one,
Speaker 1: two thousand, so that's five years before YouTube came out,
Speaker 1: and KAPPA was intended to protect children online using various measures,
Speaker 1: including restrictions on how sites could harvest and use personal data,
Speaker 1: as well as requiring sites to seek very aifiable consent
Speaker 1: from a parent or a guardian before a child was
Speaker 1: allowed to use it. The law specifically protects kids under
Speaker 1: the age of thirteen. So if you've ever wondered why
Speaker 1: so many social network sites require users to be thirteen
Speaker 1: or older, this is why. It's because creating a service
Speaker 1: that complies with Kappa is really darn hard to do.
Speaker 1: It requires a lot of oversight. I mean, just having
Speaker 1: a verifiable way for parents to consent is tough on
Speaker 1: its own, right, Like, how can you verify that it
Speaker 1: was in fact a guardian or parent who gave consent
Speaker 1: for a child to access that material. If you've ever
Speaker 1: encountered any site that asked you if you were of
Speaker 1: the appropriate age, you've probably noticed that all it takes
Speaker 1: is clicking the yes button or the I'm over eighteen
Speaker 1: button or whatever it might be. That's not verifiable, right,
Speaker 1: that's just taking your word for that. Anyone could click
Speaker 1: an affirmative answer even if they didn't meet the criteria.
Speaker 1: There's nothing stopping them. So building an age gate that
Speaker 1: verifies answers, or at least as capable of verifying answers
Speaker 1: is way more difficult. And it also means that you
Speaker 1: potentially are reducing the amount of traffic to that site
Speaker 1: or service. So a lot of companies just opt out
Speaker 1: of doing it entirely and say, hey, our stuff is
Speaker 1: not meant for kids under thirteen, so don't even try.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that kids can't try, and it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that those sites prevent kids from trying, but you know,
Speaker 1: they're at least trying to take the appearance of not
Speaker 1: being intended for younger children in an effort to not
Speaker 1: be lumped in as something that would be covered under
Speaker 1: Kappa um. There. You could have a very long discussion.
Speaker 1: It's almost like theater, right, Like it's like security theater
Speaker 1: giving the appearance of propriety in this case but not
Speaker 1: actually being proper. Uh, we could have a week long
Speaker 1: discussion about that. But you know, just keep it in
Speaker 1: the back of your mind. So KAPPA also specifically focus
Speaker 1: is on sites and services that are specifically directed to children. Moreover,
Speaker 1: the courts of interpreted Kappa to treat user generated channels
Speaker 1: like user generated content, as if they the person who
Speaker 1: created the content owned and operated the site it was on. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you made a channel that a
Speaker 1: reasonable person would interpret as having content directed to children,
Speaker 1: well then your channel would be subject to KAPPA and
Speaker 1: you could be treated as if you owned and operated
Speaker 1: the site, though the site itself could also be facing
Speaker 1: its own issues, which YouTube has faced numerous times in
Speaker 1: the past. Now let's talk about YouTube in particular now,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure we all know, YouTube and Google in
Speaker 1: general makes most of its revenue through selling ads against content,
Speaker 1: and we probably all know that the most valuable advertisements
Speaker 1: online are targeted advertisements. Those just have a higher chance
Speaker 1: of making an impact on a consumer. Here's a very
Speaker 1: simple example. If you happen to know that the person
Speaker 1: who's visiting your channel and watching a particular video has
Speaker 1: been shopping for shoes recently, serving up an ad about
Speaker 1: shoes could be a huge payoff. The person might respond
Speaker 1: to that ad, and that ad becomes more valuable. But
Speaker 1: to target ads, you have to learn about the audience first.
Speaker 1: You can't target an audience with advertising unless you know
Speaker 1: more about them. You need to know stuff like where
Speaker 1: they're living, because you don't want to serve them ads
Speaker 1: for things that aren't available in their area. You need
Speaker 1: to know what they like and what their habits indicate
Speaker 1: about those people. You might also want to know stuff
Speaker 1: like how old they are, what gender do they identify with,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Now, it's one thing to track
Speaker 1: personal data that belongs to adults, it's an entirely different
Speaker 1: matter when we're talking about children. That's when Kappa comes
Speaker 1: into play, and that's when you really need that very
Speaker 1: viable adult consent. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we're gonna talk more about Kappa
Speaker 1: and YouTube. Okay, so let's talk about Kappa and YouTube.
Speaker 1: While a channel creator might make stuff directed to children,
Speaker 1: that channel creator isn't fully responsible for tracking the data
Speaker 1: of that person necessarily, right, Like, you can get some
Speaker 1: insights on your audience through the creator part of YouTube.
Speaker 1: Like when you're actually owning a channel on your uploading videos,
Speaker 1: you get insights into your audience to some degree, but
Speaker 1: it's not like you have all the tools available to
Speaker 1: you to make use of that information the way YouTube does.
Speaker 1: Like YouTube really takes the reins on that, right, It's
Speaker 1: it's the platform's responsibility to secure advertising against the content.
Speaker 1: They're better qualified to do it and able to do
Speaker 1: it on a much larger scale, so you aren't fully
Speaker 1: responsible for that. However, you know, if you have comments
Speaker 1: or whatever enabled on your on your video, people might
Speaker 1: be leaving information that reveals personal data about themselves, like
Speaker 1: their name or where they're from, or any sort of
Speaker 1: of of information about themselves, and you could be keeping
Speaker 1: track of that, right So it wouldn't necessarily just be YouTube.
Speaker 1: You could be tracking that too. So if a content
Speaker 1: creator has enabled ads against their content, if they're trying
Speaker 1: to monetize their their videos, that brings up a ton
Speaker 1: of red flags when you know, view it in line
Speaker 1: with Kappa. But hey, what determines if a site or
Speaker 1: service or channel is directed to children in the first place, Like,
Speaker 1: what is it that makes us say, yes, this channel
Speaker 1: is meant to be shown to children. Well, there's no
Speaker 1: cookie cutter answer for that. Ultimately, if it came down
Speaker 1: to it. The FTC or Federal Trade Commission would have
Speaker 1: to rule if something is actually directed to children, using
Speaker 1: various criteria, and that criteria can include things like the
Speaker 1: subject matter involved. Right Like, if the video channel is
Speaker 1: all about home appraisals, chances are the FTC is gonna say, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: this isn't directed to children. Even if you're using cartoons
Speaker 1: to illustrate how home appraisals work. The subject matter alone
Speaker 1: is not going to appeal to children. It's not directed
Speaker 1: to them. It's not really a question. But the visual
Speaker 1: style of the content does matter, and that includes whether
Speaker 1: or not there's any use of animation. Animation is one
Speaker 1: of the criteria. So again, I know that my my
Speaker 1: animation fans out there all feel this way. There's tons
Speaker 1: of animation that's not meant for children. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: incredibly offensive or whatever, but there's tons of animation animations
Speaker 1: like any other medium, right, There's there's animation out there
Speaker 1: that's for different audiences, including audiences that don't include children. However,
Speaker 1: animation is one of the criteria that the FTC might
Speaker 1: look at if determining a channel is directed to children
Speaker 1: or not. The type of music being used in a
Speaker 1: video can also be a factor, right, So if the
Speaker 1: music is very jaunty and fun and there's animated characters,
Speaker 1: those things could be elements that the FTC takes into
Speaker 1: consideration to say, like, well, you know, even if you
Speaker 1: don't intend for this to be seen for children, it's
Speaker 1: designed in such a way as to appeal to children,
Speaker 1: So it gets kind of gray and vague. If your
Speaker 1: videos have the presence of children in them, or people
Speaker 1: posing as children and them, that can also be a factor.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different elements at play here.
Speaker 1: But hang on a minute. I hear you say, isn't
Speaker 1: this too broad of a brush? And yeah, each of
Speaker 1: these taken by themselves, definitely would be too broad a brush. If,
Speaker 1: if it only, if only one of these check boxes
Speaker 1: had to be checked for the FTC to say, well,
Speaker 1: clearly this this channel is directed to children, or this
Speaker 1: website or this service or whatever, then that would be ludicrous.
Speaker 1: It would be way too much over each right, and
Speaker 1: so you would have to definitely dig further down. There
Speaker 1: has to be multiple factors here, and it has to
Speaker 1: be reasonable to assume that the material itself was specifically
Speaker 1: created in order to appeal to children and attract children
Speaker 1: to it. So this is not a new thing. This
Speaker 1: is something that you know has been an issue for ages,
Speaker 1: and for some cycles of content, it's more prevalent than others. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can look at stuff that has been created over
Speaker 1: time that uh, you know has like a retro appeal
Speaker 1: or a nostalgia of heel to it that you could,
Speaker 1: on one hand say, oh, I can see how this
Speaker 1: could be considered directed to children. I'm thinking of things
Speaker 1: like Robot Chicken, a series where toys and and animated
Speaker 1: figures are used to tell jokes that are not meant
Speaker 1: for kids. Like the material in those shows are not
Speaker 1: meant for for kids, uh, And it's meant to appeal
Speaker 1: to an age group of people who grew up playing
Speaker 1: with like action figures and stuff. But the fact that
Speaker 1: it is animated and that's using toys, those are things
Speaker 1: that the FTC might look at and say, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hitting some of the criteria we consider for material
Speaker 1: that was meant to be directed to children. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a real um sticky situation there. And you can
Speaker 1: see how by using some of the criteria that the
Speaker 1: FTC uses to determine if something is in fact directed
Speaker 1: to children. Such a short as Chris Stroubs might get
Speaker 1: lumped in there, right, had a cartoon skeleton and had
Speaker 1: some fun music in the beginning. Never mind that the
Speaker 1: short is sort of a dark parody of those kinds
Speaker 1: of cartoons, and it is in fact leveraging that retro
Speaker 1: aesthetic to convey an unsettling and creepy story. You could
Speaker 1: argue that just because something looks similar to material produced
Speaker 1: for children, that it should qualify as intended for children.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a good argument. I don't think
Speaker 1: you can argue that just because something resembles something else
Speaker 1: that it makes it the same thing. I think that's
Speaker 1: a dangerous argument to make. But you can start to
Speaker 1: see where YouTube's AI started to make mistakes. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're someone like Stroube, there's a very good reason you
Speaker 1: would want your video to not be flagged as appropriate
Speaker 1: for all ages if in fact the video isn't. See
Speaker 1: if the FTC determines that your service or site or
Speaker 1: whatever is directed to children but is violating Kappa on
Speaker 1: some level, then you could face a maximum fine of
Speaker 1: forty thousand, five dollars per violation. That's a heck of
Speaker 1: a fine if you're a content creator, right like, you
Speaker 1: get hit for that because your video was deemed to
Speaker 1: be inappropriate for children and yet designated as appropriate for children.
Speaker 1: Explains why Straube is so frustrated that YouTube has overruled
Speaker 1: his own designation that the video is meant for older audiences.
Speaker 1: Strab could be on the hook for a large fine
Speaker 1: if a complaint were brought against his channel. And now
Speaker 1: let's talk about YouTube's own lousy history of curating content
Speaker 1: for children. It is no surprise that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of content on YouTube that's unsuitable for kids. I
Speaker 1: would argue there's a lot of content on YouTube that's
Speaker 1: unsuitable for anyone. I see examples of it all the time.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna put that aside for now, because that's
Speaker 1: just grumpy old man yells at cloud material. So YouTube
Speaker 1: launched back in two thousand five, and it did not
Speaker 1: take very long for folks to find stuff that was
Speaker 1: not appropriate for kids and yet appeared to be aimed
Speaker 1: at kids. Now, that pretty much has been part of
Speaker 1: YouTube's landscape throughout its entire history, but for a very
Speaker 1: long time that issue was largely ignored or at least
Speaker 1: not talked about very much. In two thousand fifteen, Google
Speaker 1: released an app for Android and iOS called YouTube Kids.
Speaker 1: The app was meant to give parents more control over
Speaker 1: what their kids could watch on various devices like tablets
Speaker 1: or smartphones or smart TVs, and the content was curated.
Speaker 1: The idea was that the only content suitable for children
Speaker 1: under the age of thirteen would make it through a
Speaker 1: first past filter into YouTube Kids, so that parents could
Speaker 1: be sure that whatever their kids were watching on this
Speaker 1: particular version of YouTube would not be inappropriate. But on
Speaker 1: top of that, parents would actually have additional parental controls
Speaker 1: so that they could restrict it further if they wanted to.
Speaker 1: The curated content issue really came under the spotlight in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen with the onset of what was later
Speaker 1: called Elsa Gate. That name references the character Elsa in
Speaker 1: Disney's Frozen series, and gate is a shorthand for saying scandal,
Speaker 1: and they used Elsa because the character of Elsa would
Speaker 1: figure prominently in tons of videos that were being created
Speaker 1: for YouTube and YouTube Kids. Some of those videos were
Speaker 1: live action. In fact, a lot of them were as
Speaker 1: just someone in an Elsa costume and wig, some of
Speaker 1: the shorts were animated. Sometimes the animation was actually not terrible,
Speaker 1: most of it was super cheap and limited and shoddy,
Speaker 1: and it was like a fire hose of content had
Speaker 1: just been dumped on YouTube all at monts. The consequences
Speaker 1: of that would end up being pretty serious, both for
Speaker 1: YouTube and for content creators. I'll explain more after we
Speaker 1: come back from this quick break. So some of the
Speaker 1: videos that were uploaded during Elsa Gate were just weird
Speaker 1: but otherwise mostly innocent. Other you know, they're just had
Speaker 1: a bunch of people in cheap costumes running around doing
Speaker 1: weird sketches, often without any dialogue at all. But other
Speaker 1: videos included material that was really unsuitable for kids, including
Speaker 1: sexually suggestive content, violence, other disturbing content, you know, cruelty,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And the videos would smash together
Speaker 1: tons of popular characters, and there was no question whatsoever
Speaker 1: that the people who were making these videos weren't you know,
Speaker 1: bother ring to actually license those characters. So this was
Speaker 1: all a lot of folks infringing upon intellectual property going
Speaker 1: on here, like at a truly absurd level. And you
Speaker 1: would have videos with you know, characters like Spider man
Speaker 1: talking to a pregnant Elsa while you see the joker
Speaker 1: running around in the background. It was just like a
Speaker 1: smorgas board of you know, popular characters that kids would recognize.
Speaker 1: And like I said, some of these videos were just
Speaker 1: bizarre with no real rhyme or reason to them, and
Speaker 1: they had like, you know, background music, but they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have dialogue. And obviously leaning on popular children's characters while
Speaker 1: not using words meant that those videos could become popular
Speaker 1: all around the world. There was no language barrier to overcome,
Speaker 1: so you didn't have to worry if the kids in
Speaker 1: you know, whatever region couldn't understand say English or French
Speaker 1: or whatever, because there was no no speaking or or
Speaker 1: language at all. And many of the videos became more bizarre,
Speaker 1: not necessarily out of a desire to warp kids minds,
Speaker 1: but rather driven by data. See. Content creators were paying
Speaker 1: attention to topics that were popping up in search terms
Speaker 1: and videos that were getting popular. So if topics were
Speaker 1: starting to gain in popularity, you would start seeing videos
Speaker 1: that somehow tie into those search terms. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like the old days of the web where people
Speaker 1: would just hide a massive text dump on a web page,
Speaker 1: so that search engines would pick up on that page
Speaker 1: and index them, even if the page itself had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the search term. It was just that,
Speaker 1: you know, buried somewhere on the page was that term,
Speaker 1: but the page itself had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: Like I said, there have been some channels on YouTube
Speaker 1: that created this kind of weird content directed at kids
Speaker 1: for years, and you might wonder why. And again, if
Speaker 1: you can monetize your content, your goal is to get
Speaker 1: as many views on as many videos as possible. You
Speaker 1: want to get that that view count sky rocketing. Kids
Speaker 1: are a great audience to have that happened because kids
Speaker 1: tend to fixate on content. They like to experience the
Speaker 1: same thing over and over. It becomes kind of like
Speaker 1: a ritual. I'm pretty sure every parent out there is
Speaker 1: familiar with the experience of having to read the same
Speaker 1: bedtime story for the hundredth time to their kids, including
Speaker 1: doing all the voices. So for me, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, it was There's a monster at the end
Speaker 1: of this book, and then it was Hamlet. I progressed
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, and you might think I'm joking, but I
Speaker 1: actually once found a cassette tape labeled for Jonathan that
Speaker 1: my dad made for me that included him reading Hamlet
Speaker 1: and doing different voices for the characters. Anyway, kids would
Speaker 1: rewatch videos and that would drive up the watch count,
Speaker 1: that in turn would prompt YouTube's recommendation algorithm to promote
Speaker 1: that video to other people. The idea being that if
Speaker 1: something is gaining popularity, then with a little help, it
Speaker 1: could go totally viral. And because YouTube makes most of
Speaker 1: it its revenue through advertising, and advertisers will pay more
Speaker 1: for videos with more views, keeping the viral machine going
Speaker 1: is what pays the bills. Plus, like if it's proven
Speaker 1: to keep people on the platform. The other big goal
Speaker 1: of YouTube is to keep you there as long as
Speaker 1: it possibly can, just like any other online platform that
Speaker 1: depends heavily on ads for its revenue. Facebook does the
Speaker 1: same thing, right, the idea of being let's eliminate the
Speaker 1: desire to go anywhere else and just keep people here.
Speaker 1: So these channels started to turn out content at a
Speaker 1: crazy pace, and kids would watch and rewatch the videos,
Speaker 1: and YouTube would continue to promote them. And in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: so just one year after YouTube Kids launched, The Guardian,
Speaker 1: the newspaper ran a story about one of the channels
Speaker 1: creating bizarre and sometimes disturbing content directed toward children. American
Speaker 1: news outlets would begin to cover the story in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen. Early on it was like the tech
Speaker 1: journals that were covering it. By the end of the
Speaker 1: year you had mainstream newspapers and magazines covering it, and
Speaker 1: they started listing out the dozens of channels known for
Speaker 1: blasting out odd and sometimes unsettling videos, all marketed to children,
Speaker 1: most of which were popping up on YouTube Kids, many
Speaker 1: of which you would say are not appropriate for that.
Speaker 1: The media attention cast a pretty critical light on YouTube,
Speaker 1: asking how a platform could allow this sort of content
Speaker 1: to proliferate across its platform, particularly the parts set aside
Speaker 1: specifically to curate appropriate content for children, and YouTube didn't
Speaker 1: really have any good answers for that. Now. One answer
Speaker 1: is that YouTube has way too much content uploaded to
Speaker 1: it per minute for humans to keep track of it all.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand seventeen, YouTube claimed that users were
Speaker 1: uploading around three hundred hours worth of videos every single
Speaker 1: minute of the day. So let's say you're hired YouTube
Speaker 1: to review content that's been uploaded to make sure it
Speaker 1: doesn't violate any rules. So you watch a ten minute
Speaker 1: video and by the end of that video, three thousand
Speaker 1: hours worth of material have been added to YouTube. There's
Speaker 1: just no way for humans to keep up with that
Speaker 1: kind of a content fire hose. You could employ tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of people, you still wouldn't get through all
Speaker 1: the material that's going up every single minute of the day.
Speaker 1: So one reason this stuff was getting past YouTube is
Speaker 1: yet there was just too much of it. YouTube depends
Speaker 1: heavily on users following rules, so kind of the honor
Speaker 1: system there, or users that flag content that violates the rules,
Speaker 1: so it becomes like a self policing community, and then
Speaker 1: YouTube employees are more likely contract workers can then review
Speaker 1: the flagged videos and determine do they actually violate any policies.
Speaker 1: Companies that hold a lot of like intellectual property, like
Speaker 1: the various music labels and movie studios and TV studios
Speaker 1: out there, they tend to be a lot more proactive
Speaker 1: in seeking out videos that violate their i P and
Speaker 1: they are known for flagging those videos to get strikes
Speaker 1: against the channel um or they will you know, use
Speaker 1: an option that demonetizes the video for the channel owner,
Speaker 1: but directs all monetization to them because they owned the
Speaker 1: i P. But while there are search algorithms that can
Speaker 1: seek out video and audio that violates copyright, it gets
Speaker 1: way harder when you're talking about just a bunch of
Speaker 1: people in cheap costumes posing as licensed characters in an
Speaker 1: unlicensed video. That's a lot harder to detect, you know,
Speaker 1: with a regular search algorithm. YouTube did respond to the issue, however,
Speaker 1: The company moved to demonetize videos that were deemed offensive
Speaker 1: or controversial that were directed to children. It also shut
Speaker 1: down lots of channels, like around fifty channels at one point,
Speaker 1: and it turned off comments on thousands of videos because
Speaker 1: people recognize that comments sections could include opportunities to prey
Speaker 1: upon children, like it could include sexual predators, for example,
Speaker 1: trying to reach out and lure children. So YouTube said,
Speaker 1: all right, we're just gonna We're going to discontinue comments
Speaker 1: sections on any videos that are determined to be directed
Speaker 1: to children as a safety measure. However, that still wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, the New York Attorney General's Office and
Speaker 1: the FTC would sue YouTube slash Google for violating Kappa
Speaker 1: the lawsuit accused YouTube of collecting the personal data of
Speaker 1: children without first getting parental consent, and that this came
Speaker 1: from children directed channels posting videos and YouTube monetizing those
Speaker 1: videos by pairing them with targeted advertising. Uh so this
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily stuff that was showing up on YouTube kids,
Speaker 1: although some of it was, but rather just YouTube in
Speaker 1: general saying these are our channels that are generating videos
Speaker 1: meant for children, which means that children are overwhelmingly the
Speaker 1: audience watching them, and you haven't put any protections in
Speaker 1: place to prevent these the personal data of these children
Speaker 1: being just harvested and then exploited. So Google would eventually
Speaker 1: settle out of court for a whopping one seventy million dollars. Now,
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things for Google, anyway, that's
Speaker 1: not that much money. But I can assure you that
Speaker 1: stakeholders would much rather see that hundred seventy million dollars
Speaker 1: stay with the company rather than get siphoned off to
Speaker 1: pay off fines. The settlement also required YouTube to commit
Speaker 1: to quote, develop, implement, and maintain a system that permits
Speaker 1: channel owners to identify their child directed content on the
Speaker 1: YouTube platform, so that YouTube can ensure it is complying
Speaker 1: with Kappa end quote that's from the FTC itself, and
Speaker 1: so YouTube made a renewed effort to stave off future
Speaker 1: Kappa violations. So it was in twenty nineteen and early
Speaker 1: twenty twenty that YouTube really began to push harder to
Speaker 1: force channels that had children directed content to be compliant
Speaker 1: with Kappa. One big change was that channels that were
Speaker 1: determined to be children directed would no longer be able
Speaker 1: to run targeted ads against their videos, So those videos
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a comment section either, and some other community
Speaker 1: features would similarly be eliminated or turned off. This would
Speaker 1: have the consequence of severely restricting ad revenue for those
Speaker 1: types of channels. Again, because targeted ads are so valuable
Speaker 1: compared to other types of advertising, YouTube creators would have
Speaker 1: to designate their channels as being four kids or not
Speaker 1: for kids. From a monetary standpoint, choosing not for kids
Speaker 1: made the most sense, right because that's when you could
Speaker 1: use targeted advertising. But if YouTube determined that the channel
Speaker 1: was in fact directed to children, then YouTube might override
Speaker 1: the user choice. You can't just say this cartoon about
Speaker 1: lollipops playing games with peppermint candies isn't meant for kids
Speaker 1: just so you can have targeted ads run against your video. Now,
Speaker 1: this brings us back to Chris Stroub. His video is
Speaker 1: clearly not meant for children. If you watch it, you
Speaker 1: would agree, not that it's particularly dark or disturbing. It's
Speaker 1: a little dark, but it's not super gruesome or anything,
Speaker 1: but it's it's meant to play on adult sensibilities. And
Speaker 1: this is where I really have issues with YouTube's AI.
Speaker 1: I think it is terribly irresponsible to allow an automated
Speaker 1: system to determine if content is suitable for all ages.
Speaker 1: If you run it the other way, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: If AI determines that a video that has previously been
Speaker 1: set as being suitable for all ages isn't, then changing
Speaker 1: that video so it's age restricted, that makes sense. Content
Speaker 1: creator can appeal the decision, but more importantly, a potentially
Speaker 1: offensive or disturbing piece of content gets removed from circulation
Speaker 1: among kids, which I think is the most important element.
Speaker 1: But to take a video that's been expressly flagged by
Speaker 1: the creator as being inappropriate for children and then flipping
Speaker 1: that switch without the creator's consent, that seems irresponsible to me. Now,
Speaker 1: I can see some justification to review stroubs video right, like,
Speaker 1: I can see why the AI might flag it to say,
Speaker 1: someone check this out and make sure that, in fact,
Speaker 1: it should be listed as eighteen and above. The video
Speaker 1: does feature an appealing cute Cartoons skeleton character, you know,
Speaker 1: at least cute as far as skeletons go anyway, and
Speaker 1: early on it has some fairly jaunty music playing, so
Speaker 1: you could see how it might at first glance be
Speaker 1: content directed to children. But if you watch it all
Speaker 1: the way through, you realize, okay, this is not meant
Speaker 1: for kids, and Stroube took steps to show that, like
Speaker 1: he he designated that video is not being for kids.
Speaker 1: So to have an automated system reverse this decision, and moreover,
Speaker 1: to prevent Stroube from being able to reset the age restriction,
Speaker 1: that's not a good look for YouTube. Early in there
Speaker 1: was a pretty big kerfuffle and multiple YouTube communities about
Speaker 1: the impact of Kappa and YouTube's new policies. Channels that
Speaker 1: covered topics like animation, video games, and toys particularly came
Speaker 1: under close scrutiny as some of those channels might have
Speaker 1: been you know, kind of borderline cases some of them
Speaker 1: were clearly directed to children. A lot of them had
Speaker 1: kids as hosts, but a lot of the channels weren't
Speaker 1: directed to children. They were clearly not meant for kids.
Speaker 1: They were expressly directed to older audiences. And it still
Speaker 1: speaks to a lot of false preconceptions that lawmakers who
Speaker 1: typically are you know, a little out of touch, let's say,
Speaker 1: which is a way of saying many of the are
Speaker 1: old and don't really have a deeper appreciation for this,
Speaker 1: and and those false preconceptions include stuff like, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking collectibles, video games, and animation are all expressly the
Speaker 1: domain of children, and they're not, and they haven't been.
Speaker 1: In cases like animation, that's never been the case. It's
Speaker 1: never been just for kids, but that frequently is how
Speaker 1: it gets viewed. The kerfuffle on YouTube has died down
Speaker 1: a little bit since, I mean, obviously we got Chris
Speaker 1: Strobs uh recent incident, but you know, as a whole topic,
Speaker 1: it kind of died down, and there's some reasons for that.
Speaker 1: We had a global pandemic which really took over. Headlines
Speaker 1: like the issues with YouTube and Kappa were starting to
Speaker 1: come to a head at early well by March that
Speaker 1: seemed like a quaint worry compared to other things that
Speaker 1: were going on in the world. Plus since then, we've
Speaker 1: had some truly enormous events, ranging from political insurrections to
Speaker 1: war in Eastern Europe and more. But we're still seeing
Speaker 1: the effects of YouTube's shift. On the one hand, you
Speaker 1: can understand why the platform is taking such a drastic step.
Speaker 1: It's protecting itself from future litigation. It's trying to fulfill
Speaker 1: the obligation it has to the FTC when it made
Speaker 1: that settlement in that Copper case. You can also understand
Speaker 1: this is a monumental task when you consider how much
Speaker 1: content is joining YouTube every single minute of the day,
Speaker 1: like now we're talking about more than five hours per minute.
Speaker 1: But you can also see how an automated system can
Speaker 1: make changes that unfortunately can have the opposite of the
Speaker 1: intended effect. They can actually end up making content that
Speaker 1: is expressly not for kids, flagged as being suitable for kids,
Speaker 1: that is clearly not something that YouTube wants to promote.
Speaker 1: That's just going to be asking for another Coppa case
Speaker 1: down the road. And if it's if it's something like
Speaker 1: this where you've got the documentation where STROB shows I
Speaker 1: flagged this as being inappropriate when I uploaded it. It
Speaker 1: was never meant to be shown to kids. YouTube overruled
Speaker 1: me and then prevented me from fixing it. That's a
Speaker 1: really bad look for YouTube. Anyway. I hope you learned
Speaker 1: something in this episode. Obviously we could talk a lot
Speaker 1: more about Kappa and the unintended consequences of that legislation. Again,
Speaker 1: I think that the legislation itself came from a good place,
Speaker 1: but as we frequently see when we talk about you
Speaker 1: know the intent of law, and then we see what
Speaker 1: happens when we actually enforce a law, there can be
Speaker 1: a disconnect there. Uh. I do also think that we
Speaker 1: should be seeing a lot more data privacy protections in
Speaker 1: place for everyone, not just for kids. I think for
Speaker 1: kids it's absolutely crucial, but I would love to see
Speaker 1: that because more of a thing for everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: Europe has certainly made great strides toward that. In America,
Speaker 1: we're starting to see at least some discussion around it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's ever going to turn into
Speaker 1: actionable items, but here's hoping. And that's it. That's all
Speaker 1: I've got. So we're gonna wrap up this episode if
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of different ways you can reach
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