Why Did Social Media Wait So Long To Protect Kids? | Creator Upload

0:00Welcome to Creator Upload Your Creator Economy Podcast. I'm Lauren Schnipper. And I'm Joshua Cohen. Lauren? Yes. I'm headed to the Jersey Shore. Oh, thank God. Why thank God? I don't know. It just feels right. It feels right that the Jewish kid from Arizona is headed down to the Jersey Shore? It just feels right. It just feels right. Do you know what my favorite part of the Jersey Shore is? The t-shirt shops on the Jersey Shore are like this fractal microcosm of popular culture. in that they sell whatever they want. They don't care about any intellectual property licenses, trademarks or anything.

0:39They're just selling whatever. And it's generally phrases and memes and cultural icons that are very of the moment. So like last year when I was about the shore, it was very political. I'm sure we're going to see some of that this year too. Also lots of illicit prime t-shirts. This year, not so much as we've been reporting. Probably not so much this year. But I'm really excited to see what's there. Should we take some guesses as to what we're dealing with? Yeah, let's take some guesses. What do you think we'll see? I don't know what's going on in the zeitgeist. I'm so un-zeitgeisty right now. Like definitely some Epstein t-shirts.

1:11I feel like there's going to be a lot of like AI generated graphics. You know what I mean? Like Trump AI, like kissing Putin and like things like that. I mean, that's not like what's old is new again. You know what I mean? Like that's not like necessarily never been done before. But I just feel like there's going to be like Diddy's picture, like Free Diddy. Maybe it was going to be Free Diddy. definitely that's a really good that's a really good yeah really good prediction yeah yeah i feel like that might be your best prediction ever thank you i'm not great at predictions but when i'm good i'm very good yeah that's fantastic i'm excited to see if there's going to be any like risler shirts if that's penetrated into the jersey shore is there i mean do you see any creator type t-shirts like other prime you mentioned but like have you seen any of those or do we like i mean like in the past there's been sprinklings of it and definitely more meme style t-shirts but creators get into the mix for sure jake paul logan paul sure when they were more in the cultural zeitgeist yeah you'd see some of their stuff there and definitely prime last year right i think mr beast a little bit not a lot i think he's just a little bit younger than the kind of target demographic in the demo going forward t-shirt sales yeah oh my god i went as you know i went to high school in New Jersey.

2:23And so we went down the shore after prom and senior year. And I remember we stayed in like what was like basically the equivalent of like a hotel, like a Motel 6. It was like wood paneled, but it was like a suite. It was like a giant room with like three rooms off it. Like I just thought this was like the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in my life. It's fantastic. You get a good boardwalk thing. It's a piece of Americana. My favorite ever shirt. This was like 10, 15 years ago on the Jersey Shore was when Larry the Cable Guy was really popular. You know his catchphrase, right? I don't remember.

2:57Get her done. Okay. So there was a shirt with a Jesus fish on it that said, Jesus, God, or done. And I think about that a couple times a week. Yeah. It's amazing. I understand. It's fantastic. Speaking of children, oh, what a segue. All right, I want to get to some big stories. The big thing coming out right now that might be like, not under the radar, but like not, it's not like sexy. So people aren't really talking about it that much is like some of the platforms right now, or I guess gearing up maybe for the new school year are like enhancing their protections against kids. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but just as an example, YouTube is rolling on an AI powered age estimation tool in the US is to distinguish between teens and adults.

3:42In other words, like regardless of what number you say, you know, is your birth date they are supposedly going to use ai to tell you like no like johnny you're not 25 you're actually like 12 or not even 11 um they're gonna the goal is to deliver age appropriate protections and experiences to users obviously as we know um supervised accounts for teens launched four years ago so this new system uses machine learning to infer age based on behavior search terms watch categories account history and longevity so like you know if you're watching like i don't have a good reference i was about to say like harry styles over and over again but i feel like that's like that's old like i don't know um what would be like what would be a real indicator that you're like actually searching for bluey if you're like blueing all the time but that's like really young but like something like a tweet like if you were literally watching and this is also maybe not a great indicator but if you're watching like 19 hours of taylor swift like maybe you're not maybe you're not 25 i think that's squarely in the young millennial demographic and aging Gen Z.

4:44No, but like 19 hours, the amount of hours, the repeatable watching, I think is the critical component there. It's not the fact that you're watching Taylor Swift. It's the amount of time you're watching it. I think you're saying you're 25 and you're searching for a bunch of Minecraft videos and you're watching a ton of Minecraft YouTubers and you're watching these creators that have an average age because YouTube would know this of a much younger demographic than what you say you are. Sure. So teens are going to receive additional protection, including no personalized ads, digital well-being tools, will be enabled and then safer content recommendations and reduced repetition of certain videos.

5:18And if you are mistakenly identified as under 18, like when Josh, when you were watching like 19 hours of Minecraft videos, you can verify your age via a government ID, which people, you know, especially when meta has to do things like that, people have issue with that because they don't want like their government ID to be with these platforms. But at the same time, people do want protections for kids. So like, how are they supposed to verify it? I sort of have no issue with it because it's like, if you don't like it, get off the platform. Lauren another point here from the YouTube angle that I think is interesting to bring up that seems like it's in contrast to this a little bit Is YouTube's reversal of its policy to limit profanity strong profanity in the first seven seconds of a video in order for that video to Be able to be monetized So back in 2023 YouTube changed this policy Where you used to be able to say kind of whatever you wanted up to a certain extent and your video would be monetized they then said in the first seven seconds of the video you can't use strong profanity anymore if you do your video will not be enabled for monetization just for the rest seven seconds for the first seven seconds there's other policy rules that govern kind of like how much profanity you can use and whether it's strong profanity or not strong profanity etc in the rest of your video for it to qualify for monetization but this was a hard rule for the first seven seconds And the reason they did that is because it matched up with broadcast rules.

6:40And broadcast rules did that because advertisers presumably didn't want to be linked so close to profanity. So you just come back from a commercial break and then you're getting a ton of F-bombs in the first seven seconds of programming you're watching. Nobody likes that. But now YouTube is reversing its policy and saying that you can now use profanity in the first seven seconds of a video. And why are they doing this? it's because their advertising technology has become so sophisticated and they feel so strongly that they're able to deliver the results that advertisers want that you can kind of do whatever you want in the video.

7:19And now the ad platform with whatever ML or AI efficiencies it's gained over the last two, three years will be able to target the best ads for you. So if you want to go with creators that aren't cursing in the first seven seconds or have mild profanity, the YouTube advertising system is going to figure that out for you on its own. I mean, like, I get it, and I think that's great. I think they should have kept the rule and done this, because it's not going to be as good as they think it is, number one. And number two, like, why? Why do we need, why? Like, can we not, like, this is the big priority, like, that we need to like, you know what?

7:53I agree with you, but it's also going to be kind of a little bit self-selecting where creators that want to make more money are just going to be more family-friendly. Okay, fine. I get it, but I'm just sort of like, I just feel like, you know, listen, I'm a big fan, like, Gilded Age, Pride and Prejudice, as you know, I watch Basics. But Pride and Prejudice is basically like a drug for me. Like I have to watch it like, you know, fairly frequently, at least clips of it on YouTube just to make me feel like okay about the world. And like, the world is somewhat a better place with some sort of restrictions in place.

8:19People in general, like if you give them, you know, it's like boil an ocean or like give me the confines with which to do something and I can actually be more creative because you've given me like somewhat of restrictions. And you actually end up, I think there's like with less resources or less ability to do everything, you end up getting really creative about how you can like convey your message and so i just think from like a philosophical standpoint like can we just not i totally agree with you just like really i love this though when you think about it from the platform's perspective where they're getting so i don't want to say cocky but so assured of their so cocky it's just like gross it's like yeah totally that they think they're going to be able to target exactly the type of content the advertiser wants to be in front of.

9:01And this also aligns with what Zuckerberg has been saying. And he said in 2026, all ads on Meta will be made by AI. Leaders of these platforms are just that confident with their capabilities and where the technology is going. They're like, yo, we're going to be able to do this better than any human. We're just going to run with it. It's like, it's just... And basically, in what falls to be, he's like, we're going to destroy an industry again. I think people will adapt and be fine, but we'll see. Meta is also getting into this teen safety initiative. Go figure. So there's some new safety features launched July 2025, including major enhancements across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, like expanded teen account protections initially introduced to Instagram are now available on Facebook and Messenger.

9:45And Meta has removed approximately 600 ,000 accounts engaged in predatory behavior towards minor, 135 ,000 of which were on Instagram, making one of the largest safety cleanups the company has ever conducted oh my god it's just horrifying 600 000 accounts like it's just crazy um so some features that are added direct messaging safeguards teens can teens can now see more info about who is messaging them and they can block or one tap reports as vicious accounts protections on adult run kid focused accounts instagram accounts managed by adults that frequently feature children are now placed into the strictest messaging settings hidden words filtering is enabled and suspicious users are prevented from finding those accounts via search or recommendations why wouldn't you have all that private i don't know um enhanced teens only restrictions teens under 16 now have additional limits and require parental permission for features like live streaming uh which is sort of building on some other updates from 2024 so everybody um everybody's everybody's into protecting teens go bang here tiktok is also getting into this trend.

10:50So one of the big things is teen protections have been enhanced. So parents can now block their teen from interacting with specific users, get notifications when a teen uploads or reports content, and review privacy settings and feed topic preferences. Right now, currently, I think it's notable that TicTac faces over 1 ,500 lawsuits related to child safety and privacy. I don't know if that's different than the other platforms, but it is something notable. I think what I find frustrating about these tools is how this is all possible. Like, this is all stuff that should have happened a long time ago and there you know a lot of people are sort of saying that largely due to like you know the eu and australia and other sort of regions of the world are cracking down in terms of legislation that is that is against these platforms if they don't sort of do certain things like this so like this has all been possible like i understand that ai is relatively new and so that component but like protecting our kids should not have big you know happen just because you know you're going to get fined a ton of money if you don't.

11:48But at the same time, like, that's what works. So it's like, we need to get on it. And this needs to happen. And kids don't need to be roaming free on the internet with no protections. So I just think it's like this. I think the frustrating part is like, it's all possible when backed against, you know, sort of a wall with these platforms. And Lauren, where I think this really all originated, at least on the YouTube Google side was in 2019. Back then, YouTube had to pay a record$170 million fine. That's$136 million to the FTC and then$34 million to New York State for allegedly, they admit it's no wrongdoing, for allegedly violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or what we colloquially know as COPPA.

12:27And what they were alleged to have done was collect information from viewers under the age of 13 without their consent, and then give that information to advertisers in order to let those advertisers better target kids on the platform, which is a huge no-no. That spawned the evolution of YouTube kids and a much more stringent policies towards how young demographics are consuming YouTube content and creating YouTube content on the platform too, and what tools advertisers can use to target those kids. and I think YouTube is probably thankful for that ruling now because it gets them way out ahead of the game in comparison to these other platforms that are playing a lot of catch up with trying to navigate these rules now like YouTube already has this really isolated walled garden of YouTube kids it's not always perfect but it is a really good alternative to YouTube proper that parents can feel at least, I think, multiples more comfort with having their kids watch YouTube content there than on regular YouTube.

13:33And this is just a natural extension of that. As YouTube continues to swallow up more and more consumption time on television and more and more consumption time just in general for populations all around the world, I think YouTube wants to get ahead of this and make their targeting platform for advertisers as granular as possible and keep them out of any potential trouble in the future too, like they got in in the past. Obviously, these types of changes and effects take months, if not years to plan and then announce. But it's interesting that this comes at the same time that Australia said that it's going to ban YouTube for under 16 year olds by the end of the year.

14:18There was an original bill in Australia that said it was banning people under the age of 16 from TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and more. And YouTube was not listed in that group. It was outside of that because whoever made the bill early on, or perhaps YouTube lobbyists in Australia, convinced the first billmakers that YouTube was a different kind of thing than those other platforms. It wasn't social media, it was more entertainment. And then these other platforms basically complained and they're like, yo, this ain't cool. If YouTube quacks like a duck and walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's probably like us.

14:57So now YouTube's in that mix too. And what the potential consequences are is that if Australia finds out that you're letting kids under the age of 16 access the platform and you don't have certain guardrails in there to prevent that you could define millions of dollars per instance this has been the whole thing it's like yes there's this like rule that this corner i wouldn't call the law but it is but it's like a rule that like kids under 12 can't be on these platforms but historically the platforms have no obligation to make sure that that's actually being enforced and that kids are not just lying about their age which is insane like i just think it's like when people just you know this is why i'm like i believe this because like a believer in capitalism it's like if you don't incentivize people to do things guess what they won't do them totally period and like it's like history has proven it's that way a thousand i mean i went to the post office the other day and i was just like oh my god good luck new york if you have government-run grocery stores like it was like mind-boggling like sitting there waiting for people like these people it is just i mean when is the last time anybody had a good experience at post office, like literally.

16:04And I'm not, it's like, it is what it is. It's like, if you're not incentivized to do things, you're not going to do them. If platforms aren't under the threat of some sort of serious ramifications, if they don't do this, they won't do it. And it turns out, by the way, they can do this. And it's crazy. I think you're totally right. And you've seen this firsthand for being inside of one of these big platforms where they have the capabilities to do all these things. It's just a matter of prioritization. People don't understand the prioritization how critical that is for anything getting done because like at least when i was at you know facebook it's like you know i know they got really big and then they sort of obviously laid off a bunch of people so but like there were kind of quote-unquote limited resources to do things but it's like everybody is just trying to get their bonuses and so whatever the priority for the company is is what people are going to focus their time and energy on because they know that they're going to get a bonus based on that because it's a you know a better bonus because they're going to get, because that's the priority of the company.

17:00So until there is incentive, both from a macro level and a micro level for like that one engineer to build the thing, they're not going to do it. Like they're just not going to do it. And like, this goes back to my point. If you're not incentivized, you're not going to do it. It's like, and there's exceptions to the rules, obviously, but like overall, this is how the world works. I'm just telling you. Am I wrong? No, in fact, I'm going to prove you right. Here's one of the best incentive-based bonuses for a product ever. in April 2011, when Larry Page was still CEO of Google, he sent out a company-wide memo announcing that 25 % of every employee's bonus would be tied to the company's success in social, specifically mentioned Google's strategy to integrate relationships, sharing, and identity across our products in a reference to Google+.

17:45So that's why Google +, was this huge thing a decade and a half ago across like every single Google product, because people were incentivized to do that 100 yeah god it's just like it's great being right you know what i mean carrots and sticks work carrots and sticks work um okay next up mr beast is not only obviously in content he's in many he has many other ventures and right now he's going deeper apparently into toys so mr beast lab the descent it's an upcoming series of animated shorts made um is going to be made in partnership with moose toys which produces the mr beast toy line is um just announced that it's going to be at san diego's comic-con and the series of course stars mr as himself a youtuber but also the head of a lab that's trying to stave off an invasion of shadow monsters aka the shroud from another realm um sorry it just voice is necessary you have been watching a lot of anime

18:44and of course obviously he's now going to sell toys against this i mean you don't you don't partner with Moose Toys to not sell toys on your animated series. So Lauren, when he first partnered with Moose Toys back in June, July of 2024, within the first six months of sales, they had revenues of$65 million. And in the 2024 holiday season, the Mr. Beast Lab Mutators earned the number one spot in US sales in the entire action figure super category. And Mr. Beast Lab swarmed two figure and five figure packs for the number one and number two top selling items and action figure collectibles during the same period.

19:18It's really interesting once you get past the surface level of how these action figures are sold. There's this whole economy around it and how the rankings go and what people are buying based on the rankings. I learned a little bit about this going to Toy Fair last year. There's this company, Serkana, that does all of the reporting on this. And there's so many subcategories. So there's not just action figures. There's two-figure action figures. There's five-figure action figures. There's collectible action figures. And you want to be top. It's a real kind of art and science to figure out which category you want your toys to be placed in.

19:57Because if you're higher up in the rankings on those categories, it's more likely that big box retailers are going to buy you and notice you and you're going to be at the top of the charts. Similar to if you're a mobile game and you're at the top of the charts on the Google Play Store or the Apple apps. In any case, his toys have been rocking it. just based on his promo. Now you add in what looks to be actually like a really cool 2D animation series. I mean, maybe because of my interpretation of my voiceover, but go on. You're like those people that put their own VO in the rough cuts in the hopes that the people who end up viewing the rough cut will be like, oh, let's just use her.

20:38I am those people. I don't think I'm like, I am. Basically, you're vying for a spot in the character. In the Beast Lab series. And I think it could do a lot for the brand. If this has any kind of traction whatsoever, I mean,$65 million in its first six months with just promotion on Beast. If this animated series blows up in any capacity, it could do really, really well. This harkens back to the days of the 80s and 90s when you had He-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and more, which were all these cartoons, basically invented to sell toys. I mean, in 1984, 85, at peak He-Man, it was doing$400 million a year.

21:22Back in 1984 numbers, Barbie right now sells like a billion dollars a year. There's a He-Man movie coming out, so like, wash out. What's also, I think, interesting about this is if this hits some kind of critical mass, is it going to get young kids, especially boys, because that's the demo, to play with toys again? It's not that easy to find action figures now, partly because the stores where the action figures were sold no longer exist. And also partly because there's no one showing these kids how to play with action figures anymore. You used to watch a G.I. Joe cartoon and during the commercial breaks, you'd see little boys playing with G.I.

21:59Joe action figures. And then kids would be like, oh, I want to do that. There's no corollary to that now. It's just playing Minecraft, basically. I mean, again, just in your world. I think it's also important to note that the new channel for this series, 7 million subs in two days, so not too shabby. All right, we're going to go just straight to uploads, downloads. And like I would be remiss not to mention that just last Friday, in response to the viral video that happened at the Coldplay concert, which for those that have been living literally under a rock, this married to other people couple was caught canoodling on the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert.

22:38This was the CEO of a company called Astronomer. And it was with the just chef's kiss perfect, the head of HR. And they were, again, married to other people, they were caught canoodling, and they immediately ducked down. And it was just the meme is the internet that at its best, or at its worst, there's been a lot of sort of talk about how we're all horrible and insensitive people, because these people have lives and families. And subsequently, the CEO resigned, and ultimately, this HR lady resigned. And so, you know, this company, which is a, you know, fairly well funded, I think they have something like 90 odd million in recent funding, you know, has gotten all these eyeballs on them for obviously not the reasons that they really would care to have.

23:16And so what did they do in what I think might be arguably the most amazing kind of response to any sort of PR crisis moment is they hired as a quote unquote temporary spokesperson, Gwyneth Paltrow, who for again, those people that I don't know, don't know anything, is the ex-wife of Chris Martin, who is the lead singer of Coldplay. Lauren, real quick, she's the conscious uncoupler. She's the conscious uncoupler. She herself has just had sort of amazing, you know, she's dealt with crisis PR moments in such an amazing way. She's the CEO of Goop. Anyway, she comes on and she just talks about like, I know you want to know what we, you know, she does this ad.

23:55If you haven't seen it, go see it. I don't want to like butcher it. It's just such a perfect moment. And it's just, I honestly, and I have I've been in the presence of Gwyneth Paltrow I could say a lot of things about her I've always of course I'm a goop fan obviously but she she is nothing if not a person with an incredible sense of humor and like it just speaks to like her relationship with her ex-husband and the fact that there's I mean the whole thing was brilliant and it was done by Ryan Reynolds company Maximum Emford he is like the founder of this which is people might not know and they sort of in the Ryan Reynolds fashion historically do like very just sardonic funny ads.

24:32And so it's just all of the pieces and came together, not only perfectly for this sort of ad, and they sort of try to redirect the conversation about like what they actually do and take advantage of the attention that they've received. But the speed at which this was done was so brilliant. And it like blew up the internet again. It's just it is, you know, I think that this is in many ways, the perfect example of how to just take advantage of a crisis first they owned it they got rid of these two people immediately they you know and then they addressed it and tried to redirect the attention to something that's more useful to them i mean it's like this is the playbook people this is it it's like don't deny it own it and like go forward and try to take advantage of it scott galloway is always like a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and they did not waste this and i'm just um i Again, chef's kiss just couldn't be more impressed.

25:25Lauren, download this week, big one. So V Shoujo is this management company that reps or used to rep the top VTubers in the game. Those names include Iron Mouse, who at times has been the most subscribed creator on Twitch, Zentria, Project Melody, and more. and basically what happened recently is that Iron Mouse said she's leaving V Shoujo because they haven't paid her and they haven't distributed funds to a charity that she raised money for during a stream last year. Over$500 ,000 was owed. And then once Iron Mouse left, the rest of the talent at V Shoujo kind of gave them room to then come out and say how they haven't been paid either and caused this cascade effect to basically leave the company without any creators.

26:21Days later, the CEO and founder of Vshojo, Justin, aka Gunrun, issued the statement that said, Vshojo has failed and I've misaligned the company into the situation you are all witnessing. So today I'm sharing the difficult news that Vshojo is shutting down and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us to this point. Basically goes on for a couple paragraphs talking about how he raised$11 million, burned through that cash to try to build something, and then was actively trying to raise more money, but using the funds generated by these creators and the funds that should be paid out to these creators to float the business while he was looking for more investment.

26:57Never a great idea. Kind of as reminiscent of the Defy days, where Defy wasn't paying creators to float its own business. Well, I'm also thinking about, I don't know if you watched the two-part Billy Joel documentary, which was amazing by the way if you've not watched it but i didn't remember that like his managers like stole like i mean he sold he ended up suing for like 90 million dollars so like if it can happen to billy jill it can happen to anybody and he ended up having to go back on the road and he's obviously earned you know that back and then some but he was basically broke he was the biggest touring musician in the world in like the 80s and he was completely broke um and he like didn't get it because he was just focused on his art and all this sort of stuff and you know like he was trying to buy a house and he was like, I don't have the money for that.

27:39And a friend of him was like, excuse me? You should have the money for that. He didn't even realize it. So there's a long history of artists and creators in the old school sets and new school sets being taken advantage of by their representatives. So that's very sad, but also not necessarily surprising. I mean, a situation like that could give anybody a heart attack.

28:06Okay. All right. This news about Vshojo, short-term, detrimental to the VTuber streaming community. Long-term, I think, just brings more attention to it, like you said. Yeah. It's terrible to waste a good crisis. I mean, you can't trust... It's bringing more exposure into this ecosystem, and these VTubers are going to come out on top very soon. Absolutely. Yeah, Josh, I know you need to get down the shore. I think we did it. Lauren, I think that's it. I'll see you perfecting your beast anime voice. What would your character's name be? Broadway bound. I don't know. We'll work on it. We'll get back to you next week on Creator Upload.

28:47Today's show was produced by Lauren Schnipper, Joshua Cohen, that's me, and Adam Conner. It's edited by Adam Conner 2. Original music is by London Bridge. You can check him out on Instagram at London Bridge Music. Make sure you subscribe to Creator Upload right here on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, as well as Spotify or wherever you're listening. While you're there, give us a rating and leave us a comment. If you want to talk, hit us up at info at creatorupload.com. If you like our show, recommend it to a friend. If you love it, just tell everyone. Thanks for listening to Creator Upload, and we will be back next week.