YouTube is rolling out COPPA changes
YouTube has been fined around $200 million for breaking COPPA laws for protecting children online. The Childhood Privacy Protection Act imposes strict guidelines on websites and apps that are directed or targeted towards anyone under 13 years old and found YouTube breaching their child protection laws online.
According to Ofcom, reports show that 16 to 24-year-olds watch around 73 minutes of YouTube content every day, in comparison to 53 minutes watched by 25 to 34-year-olds. This is worrying for some YouTuber’s as content which makes up the most popular videos were mostly viewed by children up to the age of 11.
YouTube said the advertisement changes will significantly affect creators who target videos at children because they can no longer make money from targeted adverts. Changes to YouTube Studio are rolling out globally, including that videos must be assigned as ‘for children’ or ‘not for children.’
Instagram adds to its story creation features
Brands can now reach out to Instagram users more personally, with the creation of user-generated Instagram filters. Circulating recent Instagram story posts has been popular ‘face-filters’ added by brands such as Adidas, Gucci and Kylie Cosmetics where users can see or ‘try on’ new products.
Anyone within the app can create an Instagram filter, to use and share it; the creator of the filter will always have a direct link to their page within other user’s stories. For brands, this means that by creating a viral, on-trend filter could drive a significant amount of traffic back to their Instagram page as well as featuring across thousands of personalised stories each day.
For example, the NBA released a filter where users could snap and use AR to add a dunking basketball player to their image using the camera. This was popular with users outside of the NBA’s current following and was a great way of driving new audiences to an account through using filters.
One particular filter which went viral was by ‘2020 Predictions’ creator Filippo Soccini. Before his homemade filter went viral within the app he had around 7,000 followers and after the success of those using his filter, he is now on over 100k.
Tip users via Tweets on Twitter
As a result of the popularity of cryptocurrency, Twitter is said to be looking into the possibility of ‘tipping via tweet’.
According to an interview with Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, the app is exploring the idea of exchanging money through tweets.
It was announced: “Twitter is considering a feature that will allow users to tip – sending each other money from their tweets – according to two people familiar with the company’s decisions. Twitter and Square already partner to let users make donations to politicians through tweets, according to company filings.”
Although the feature is not currently in development, it could be something new to the app later in the year.
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by Jorgie McHale-Ramsell
