[this is the script to my video on the topic]

If this video is hitting the right people, you’re hopefully a Minecraft YouTube Livestreamer. If you’re not, I’ll try to do a good job explaining the problem to you. Back to the streamers. If you’re a good streamer, you seek out competition and see what others are doing better than you, or worse than you despite getting more viewers. First, let’s compare YouTube Gaming to its competitor, Twitch. Here is a screenshot of Twitch’s Minecraft page set to “Recommended” at 9:45 PM on a Monday night [image]. This looks completely normal. However, YouTube’s page has some serious issues. Here is a screenshot of YouTube’s Minecraft page set to “My Region” at 9:45 PM on a Monday night [image]. This is their completion [image], this is ours [image]. What happened?

Since the beginning of the 2010’s, shifts in entertainment have been happening left and right. This meant a heavier reliance on the Internet to entertain individuals as opposed to television and radio. What this unfortunately meant was children’s content was necessary, as parents relied on the Internet to entertain their children. YouTube was the primary target for this surplus of children’s content. Creators began to notice the odd nature of this content. Many videos around the mid 2010s were devoted to exposing these videos, evicting these creators from the adult side of the platform entirely.

YouTube’s small efforts to remove these creators weren’t enough; and before it was too late, YouTube was in serious trouble. In November of 2019, YouTube announced that they were making big changes to how Kids content is handled on YouTube. The reason? In Variety’s words, “to settle allegations that YouTube violated the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The law bars internet companies from collecting data from kids under 13 — something to which YouTube turned a blind eye for years” What YouTube did was add a required setting when you upload a video. You must explicitly decide whether the video is Made for kids, or Not made for kids. While complying with the FTC’s requests, the Made for kids system also acts as a categorical value for videos. When you’re an Adult account on YouTube, you’re less likely to come across Kids videos, as they’re not made for you. Of course, this doesn’t apply to these livestreams at all.

Children’s entertainment is not what live streams were ever for. When you press “Go Live” on a platform called “YouTube Gaming”, your expectation is that you’re competing with other gamers. Not children’s content. It’s unfair that these creators are allowed to call what they do “Gaming in the Minecraft category”.

These streamers are abusing the Made for kids system on their live streams. YouTube still allows live chat, playlist saves and mini player on their content. Features that, according to YouTube’s own compliances with the FTC, aren’t allowed on content that is made for kids. YouTube even addressed this issue in 2019, saying, “Although games like Minecraft might appeal to children, what's important is whether the content you've created itself is directed toward kids”. Why would YouTube place livestreams directed towards kids alongside livestreams specifically marked as “Not made for kids”? Because these creators don’t mark their livestreams as “Made for kids”

According to Google Support, “If your channel or live stream’s audience is set as made for kids, some features will be turned off or restricted” this includes Live Chat, Comments, Reminder Notifications, and Personalized Ads. These channels have all of these features enabled on content that should be marked as “Made for kids”, which, according to YouTube’s definition, is content that, “Children are not the primary audience, but the video is still directed at children because it features actors, characters, activities, games, songs, stories, or other subject matter that reflect an intent to target children”. All things that apply to these livestreams. YouTube contradicts itself in this field. YouTube stated in 2019 that, “if we find that you're abusing our systems and intentionally marking your videos incorrectly this may result in consequences for your channel or videos”. Exactly what these streamers are doing, yet YouTube is doing nothing to their channels or videos except promote them more. YouTube even elaborated on this later in the year when they said, “We'll only change your settings if we detect error or abuse.” This is evidence that these creators are abusing the Made for kids system and YouTube is doing nothing about it.

YouTube needs to change the way it filters, places, and handles children's livestreams on the platform for the safety of the children watching, the passion of the participants creating real content, and the legal stability of its own platform.

I think I speak for a majority of the Minecraft YouTubers when I say that this is not what we are. We are so much more than these creators. These creators are abusing a system designed to protect children as a weapon to hurt creators. As one big Minecraft community, we need to stand up and retaliate against this illegal mistreatment of the content that surrounds us. Sign and share the petition I’ve linked at the top of the comments or go to “change.org/nomoremonsterschool” to help this cause. YouTube Gaming will always be in the shadow of Twitch, but if YouTube can change how they handle this content, maybe some mobs won’t spawn.

That’s what I would end the video with if the story ended there. It, unfortunately, doesn't. By allowing live chat on these livestreams, YouTube is putting the moderation in the hands of the creator, along with whoever the creator decides can control the chat, a moderator. While researching for this video, I stayed away from the content I was talking about because I thought I knew all of it. I saw the grotesque thumbnails and titles. I watched one for a few minutes a few weeks ago. I thought I knew everything. Until I entered the chat.

Upon entering a smaller children’s livestream, around 200 viewers, to test if there really was a full live chat on a stream that should be marked as “Made for kids” I noticed something. A red arrow profile picture pointing to a link. And a caption that read, “Hot girls and boys video chat”. This took me by complete shock. I never even thought of this. Until then, I was just using the live chat as a hypothetical reason. Like, someone could use this maliciously, but nobody cares enough to. So, I checked some more. “Jerk off adv, wet girls are here”. And the biggest of them all, an automated moderator named Nightbot that deleted a message from one of these accounts. But the creator of the stream didn’t delete the message, Nightbot only caught it because the user was spamming. And by calling out the user, Nightbot was doing just as much advertising for this website as the user spamming the link.

As much as I wanted to end this video optimistically as a request to YouTube to care for its creators, this is much more than that. I am concerned for what this means for the platform and the young children that use it. If YouTube has been and continues being okay with their prominently featured Minecraft creators abusing the “Made for kids” system and allwoing promotion of pornography to children, there is a much bigger issue than creator discovery and platform advantages. There are child safety laws being broken and YouToube could be in big trouble, again.