What is COPPA and why does it matter?
Issue #11
It's nearly time to say goodbye to 2020 (and seriously not a moment too soon). This New Year's celebration is going to "look a little different" than what we're used to, but hopefully you're all finding ways to safely connect with your family and friends. If 2020 did one good thing for us, it was showing us how important our relationships are. My hope for 2021 is that we can carry that realization with us and keep finding new ways to build meaningful connections with the people who matter most. Oh, and that we never have to use the word "unprecedented" ever again.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
I know that talking about technology regulation is generally about as exciting as watching the holiday turkey roast. That’s definitely how I used to feel. However, when I first learned of the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) in the US, I have to admit I learned a lot about why it is needed and important.
Do you know why apps in the social media and networking space including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Discord all have age ratings of at least 12+, or ‘Teen’? It actually doesn’t have anything to do with maturity or when our children are ‘ready’ for these types of platforms.
The reason is COPPA.
For better or worse, technology can have a pretty big impact on our lives, and that's especially true for younger users. COPPA was passed in 1998 and implemented in April 2000, after bipartisan support to make the internet safer for kids. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) oversees COPPA and issues fines to companies that violate the regulations.
Without getting lost in the details, the basics of COPPA are actually pretty simple. If a website or application is going to collect any personal information on children under the age of 13, it requires parental approval. That’s it - it’s like a digital permission slip. The person providing parental approval must also be able to prove that they are, in fact, an adult and the parent or legal guardian of the under-13 user.
Personal information includes data provided by users such as name, birthday, age, gender and more, but also includes any photos or videos of the person’s face. In addition, any service with persistent identifiers that track our every move on a given platform are subject to COPPA. This includes basically all algorithmically-driven services (virtually all social media) as well as YouTube.
Suffice it to say that the COPPA regulations are wide-ranging and have a significant impact on how platforms are designed and how they interact with users. Similar restrictions also exist under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation–Kids (GDPR-K).
These rules are no joke. They make it difficult for us to develop platforms for kids—and that’s a good thing. When kids are involved, we should be erring on the side of safety. We built Kinzoo around these regulations so it can be done, if the platform is truly motivated by child safety and privacy. The regulations do add some necessary friction to the sign-up and onboarding processes, but that friction exists to keep platforms safer.
But when large platforms are more interested in daily active user counts than child safety, it’s all too easy for them to circumvent COPPA and GDPR-K altogether. If platforms simply claim they don’t cater to young users, they have been able to more or less ignore the regulations, at least until very recently. YouTube laughingly claimed that their site was intended for 13+ when the FTC was investigating them for COPPA violations in 2019. That same year, YouTube’s top earner was an 8-year-old boy named Ryan who does toy reviews on his channel (he reportedly earned $26 million in 2019).
As I’m sure any other parents can attest, there is very little doubt that kids are using these platforms, and using them in massive numbers. Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok all derive much of their value from their user counts, so implementing COPPA-compliant flows would not only be extremely costly, it would impact their most important metric by potentially cutting out a massive segment of their audience.
Because their Terms of Use generally state a 13+ age rating, social media, gaming and content sites have traditionally been able operate outside of COPPA. But the tide may be turning: In September 2019, the FTC made a landmark decision to fine YouTube $170 million after alleging the platform collected personal information from children without parental consent. TikTok was also fined $5.7 million earlier in 2019 for COPPA violations. The FTC finally acknowledged that children under 13 were using the platforms, and those platforms had basically been turning a blind eye.
While these fines are a drop in the bucket for the companies, the outcome is positive for kids and parents because the FTC has forced these platforms to act. YouTube was forced to make significant changes, including removing the ability to monetize content that is directed to children. These are great changes, but as is often the case, a long period of time passed before actions were taken. In the meantime, platforms like YouTube operated outside of the regulations for more than a decade, and children fuelled a significant portion of their growth over that period.
Regulations are there to protect our kids, but we as parents can’t solely rely on them. It will do all of us well to increase our general understanding of online privacy and safety for our kids. Understanding the basics of COPPA, and seeking platforms that are COPPA compliant for our kids that are under 13 are a great start.
A deeper dive
Here are a few helpful resources in case you want to really dig into today's topic:
Just how old are kids when they start using adult platforms? Common Sense Media reports that the average kid gets their first social media account at age 12.6, while Influence Central estimates are even younger at age 11.4. Either way, children are signing up before they are technically allowed to be on the platforms—usually around the same time they get their first cell phone.
If you're curious about just how many companies are caught violating COPPA, here is a handy (and very long) timeline for you.
TL;DR
Too long; didn't read. It shouldn't be a full-time job to keep up on industry news, so here is a mercifully quick summary of some other notable developments:
Parents worry. It's what we do. And the pandemic created all kinds of new fodder to worry about. But according to a new poll released by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at Michigan Medicine, the top three concerns for parents during the pandemic were on how much time children were spending on screens and social media, if their child was being bullied or cyberbullied and if the child could be in danger while online. It's important to note, however, that the concerns varied greatly according to race and ethnicity. Pediatrician Dr. Jenny Radesky had this to say after reviewing the findings: "The differences in parent concerns by race and ethnicity is so, so important. I hear this from the Black and Hispanic families I work with as well: They are much more worried about family members getting sick from COVID-19, and they therefore can't tolerate the risks of certain child activities—for example play date pods, in-person therapies or returning to in-person schooling—that White parents are comfortable with."
A lot of schools have opted to extend their winter breaks due to the uptick in COVID-19—which leaves a lot of parents scrambling to keep their kids occupied during their time off. If you're turning to tech to help keep children entertained, Netflix and CBS All Access have rolled out a few new family-friendly features. Netflix, for example, is introducing ways to help parents keep track of what their kids are streaming. But they're not stopping there: in addition to including information about the child’s recently watched shows and interests, they're serving up "suggested conversation topics and activities—like coloring pages or jokes—that parents can use to engage kids further."
And lastly
Here are a few more pieces of original writing from me and my team—just in case you're keen for more:
If it's anything like years past, many, many children received their first phone or tablet this holiday season. And along with a new device comes new conversations about screen time and digital citizenship. If you're wondering where to begin with your kids, here's a helpful article from the Kinzoo team!
And if you're fielding requests for new apps on said device, here is a handy tool to help you figure out which ones are right for your kid.
Okay, that's it from me until next week. If you enjoyed this newsletter, and know of another parent who would as well, please feel free to forward it along.