When I am not at work or doing homework, I can likely be caught watching YouTube. I use YouTube daily for entertainment, news, and other information (many of my home projects have been guided by helpful videos). The issue of demonetization and advertising continues to be a popular conversation especially among YouTubers who have lost their revenue for a spectrum of reasons. One of the biggest reasons for demonetization is for what YouTube dubs as inappropriate content. This is because advertisers do not want to have their brands associated with potentially offensive content. This has led to a significant share of monetized content being aimed at children. The issue now becomes complicated as many of the people viewing and creating monetized content are breaking YouTube’s terms of use requiring that users are at least 13 years old. As a response to this and growing concerns of children accidentally encountering inappropriate content on the platform YouTube has just launched YouTube Kids. YouTube Kids is supposed to make it easier for parents to monitor what their children watch and harder for the inappropriate content to slip in, although YouTube warns that it still can get through.
As a daily user of YouTube, I am interested in how YouTube itself and YouTubers earn revenue. I know that kids are increasingly becoming more and more reliant on YouTube for entertainment. I think this issue raises good questions about the role of parents in both monitoring children’s media consumption and teaching children media literacy skills. I have seen a fair amount of coverage over this issue. Much of the coverage seems to be critical of YouTube. In my opinion this seems fair as children’s safety is involved and YouTube is the leading video streaming platform.
