How to Know if You Should Use the “Made for Kids” Feature on YouTube?

The Made for Kids feature on YouTube allows content creators to decide whether their content consists of child friendly YouTube videos. YouTube launched the feature in 2019, and so far, it’s been a success.

If you’re new to content creation on YouTube and are wondering what the feature is all about, you’re at the right place. In this article, we’ll help you understand how you should use the feature on YouTube. So, read on.

What is ‘made for kids?’

YouTube’s ‘made for kids’ feature is essentially a label that content creators are required to use if the primary audience of their videos and channels consists of kids. It also applies to content that’s aimed at a ‘mixed audience’, i.e. audience consisting of children and older viewers. For instance, content featuring child actors, stories, songs, preschooler educational material, and animation videos for kids all have to be labeled as ‘made for kids’.

Why did YouTube introduce the ‘made for kids’ label?

The introduction of the ‘made for kids’ label was a result of the heat YouTube faced from child protection groups in 2018. The groups claimed that YouTube was blatantly violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in an official complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Allegedly, YouTube was collecting data on children below 13 years old.

After a thorough investigation, the FTC found that the allegations were true. The investigation concluded that YouTube was collecting data on the viewers of kids’ videos and using it for advertising. As a result, YouTube was slapped with a fine to the tune of a whopping $170 million.

To be compliant with the COPPA, YouTube had to stop its data collection activities targeted at kids below 13 years old. However, the public embarrassment that YouTube had to endure due to the FTC investigation led to the platform making wholesale changes in terms of its treatment of content for children.
What happens if you label your content as ‘made for kids?’
As a content creator, you can either label individual videos or your entire channel as ‘made for kids’. If the label applies to an individual video, here’s what will happen:

• YouTube comments, donations, live chats, notifications and all other interactive features will be disabled.
• Personalized ads served by YouTube based on the viewing history of a YouTube viewer will also be stopped.

If you label your entire channel as ‘made for kids’, its memberships, notifications, stories, and community posts will be deactivated by the platform.

Is there a way around the ‘made for kids’ label?

When YouTube announced the requirement for the ‘made for kids’ label for children’s content, many creators became worried about their potential to generate income from their channels. However, the platform helped to alleviate the creators’ money-making fears by saying that creators would remain in charge of labeling their content.

For instance, if your content is designated by YouTube as ‘made for kids’ automatically, you’ll still retain the right to change the designation. In such a scenario, you can change the designation to ‘general audience’ if you want to activate comments and additional interactive features.

Should you use the label or stick with the ‘general audience’ designation?

The answer to this question depends on what you want from your content creation activities on YouTube. Quite simply, if you want to interact with the average YouTube subscriber, the ‘general audience’ designation would seem to make more sense.

However, if your content is child-friendly in its entirety, labeling it as ‘made for kids’ is likely to make the YouTube algorithm recommend it to viewers alongside other ‘made for kids’ videos.

Conclusion

So, there you have it – everything you need to know about YouTube’s ‘made for kids’ feature. Before we pull the curtains down on this article, we’d like you to try out YTPals – a software tool for increasing YouTube shares and YouTube likes.