Recently, YouTube came up with a new advertising policy for its viewers, also keeping in mind the children who might come across something that may be inappropriate for their age. But, the child safe ad policy designed by YouTube raises the question of how it is going to affect the viewership of the kids- will it be affected negatively or not? This policy is going to restrict children from watching what is appropriate for their age which will be decided by the personal information they provide. The content provided will be restricted to only their age.
“These platforms aren’t as conducive to child-based consumption, so you might end up with children looking for videos on a platform that is not infrequently focused on games that have [a mature] rating,” Keith Smith says.
Assistant professor at Northeastern University says that this change may have brought unintended consequences to the video streaming website and may end up driving children to other websites that are not children-friendly at all. This could also affect the children’s video creators on the platform as well as the people who make videos aimed to be seen by a smaller audience. These people may have to shift towards relatively high-revenue targeted ads. Targeted ads are a very effective way of using ads to reach the exact audience that is more likely to buy the product; hence these kinds of ads play a more major role than that of general ads.
“Many of these content providers make a living on YouTube, and specifically, make a living through the revenue from targeted ads,” Smith says. “When you show an ad on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon, those ads are rarely targeted to any level of depth.”
All of the effects of YouTube’s new policy raises the question of how it is going to affect the video streaming website after it having the monopoly in that area of the internet for years. Though this policy is aimed towards safeguarding children from coming across stuff exceeding their age, it also restricts them at certain levels.
Disha Mazumder
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