Los Angeles Times - 02.08.2019

C2 FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019 WST S LATIMES.COM/BUSINESS

BUSINESS BEAT

In early July, YouTube
made a significant change to
its software to boost what it
deems “quality” children’s
content, sending waves of
traffic to certain video pro-
ducers and burying other
channels. The change came
as the company tries to con-
vince parents that its service
is safe for kids and convince
regulators that it isn’t violat-
ing the law.
The update immediately
alarmed many YouTube
creators who already felt
that their livelihoods hang
at the whims of mysterious
algorithms.
Kids’ entertainment is
massive on YouTube, the in-
ternet video-sharing arm of
Alphabet Inc.’s Google. It’s
also controversial. Because
YouTube lets people post
clips with few limitations, it
has faced criticism for mak-
ing inappropriate and dis-
turbing footage available to
kids.
In response, YouTube
has made two notable
changes in recent years. In
2017 it purged dozens of
channels behind violent and
sexual videos featuring kids
or cartoons. And this year it
shut off users’ ability to com-
ment on videos starring chil-
dren after evidence surfaced
that video comments were
used to identify young girls
in clips that could be seen as
sexually suggestive.
YouTube’s software algo-
rithms determine how vide-
os are placed in search re-
sults and viewing recom-
mendations, and the com-
pany is notoriously secretive
about them. Thousands of
video creators rely on
YouTube’s cloaked system
to reach their audience and
earn advertising money.
Many adjustments to the
software are routine, but the
latest change stood out.
“Most of the time, we don’t
even notice it,” said Melissa
Hunter of Family Video Net-
work, a YouTube multi-
channel network and con-
sulting firm. “Whatever was
tweaked about a week and a
half ago was very notice-
able.”
YouTube confirmed the
recent software update but
declined to detail the rea-
sons behind it. “We make
hundreds of changes every
year to make it easier for
people to find what they
want to watch on YouTube,”
spokeswoman Ivy Choi said

in a statement. “We recently

made one such change that

improves the ability for

users to find quality family

content.”

Since the change, some

videos aimed at pre-

schoolers saw a precipitous

drop in traffic, while others

catering to a similar age

group saw major surges,

Hunter said. When the shift

occurred, the company did

not communicate it to crea-

tors, according to Hunter

and other YouTube crea-

tors.

The viewers have not re-

turned. One YouTube cre-

ator posted a chart July 13, in

aprivate Facebook group,

showing a 98% drop in view-

ing traffic in three days. “Is it

time to stop creating kids

content?” read the message.

YouTube bars children

younger than 13 from using

the site and recommends

children use YouTube Kids,

its app with more content fil-

ters and parental controls.

But that app’s reach is small

relative to YouTube’s main

site, and people at the com-

pany have privately ac-

knowledged that older chil-

dren gravitate from the app

to the far larger media cata-

log on YouTube.com.

YouTube recently reached a

settlement with the Federal

Trade Commission over al-

legations it violated a law

that prohibits collecting

personal data from minors

and serving them targeted

ads. The settlement could

lead to a potential fine and

additional oversight.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s

chief executive, has recently

emphasized the “educa-

tional” value of YouTube. He

told investors last week that

YouTube would place “a lot

of effort” into its Kids app.

“It’s a product you’re going

to see us focus more on and

continue to evolve, add more

curated content there, and

make sure it’s safe for kids

and give parents peace of

mind,” he said on the com-

pany’s earnings call. Pichai

said the approach also ap-

plied to “family-oriented”

videos on YouTube.com.

“Rewarding trusted crea-

tors is a big way we can help,”

he added.

YouTube wouldn’t share

examples of “trusted crea-

tors.” But the company

pointed to guidelines it

publishesfor making family

videos. The document sug-

gests avoiding footage that

looks like it came from “con-

tent farms” (repetitious

clips that feature the same

cartoon truck in different

colors, for instance) and

“mindless, addictive content

that has no substance or de-

velopmental value to the

viewer.” A spokeswoman

said these guidelines do not

determine what videos are

recommended, removed or

eligible for ads.

The company also has

not detailed how it defines

“quality” or “educational”

videos. So one of the best ba-

rometers for YouTube’s met-

ric is its Kids app, which

places videos front and cen-

ter once a viewer logs in. The

educational merits of these

choices are up for debate.

Heather Kirkorian, an early

childhood development pro-

fessor at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison, opened

the app this week and found

“Baby Shark” and “Lucas

the Spider,” two global hits.

“I wouldn’t consider them

educational. I would con-

sider them wholesome,” she

said. “The term ‘educa-

tional’ is used as an umbrella

for ‘non-harmful.’”

Creators said YouTube’s

recent updates affected

both its main site and Kids

app. The app’s home screen

has tiny icons with recom-

mended videos under the

categories “Music,” “Shows”

and “Learning.”

Some of those channels

included there saw recent

boosts in views and sub-

scriptions, the key metrics

for the service. Those in-

clude established producers

such as PBS Kids and

Mother Goose Club. Woolly

and Tig, a British channel

that makes live-action clips

of a girl and her stuffed toy,

has seen a 156% increase in

views over the last 30 days,

according to Social Blade, a

firm that measures

YouTube traffic. Repre-

sentatives from the Woolly

and Tig channel didn’t im-

mediately respond to a re-

quest for comment.

Channels such as Woolly

and Tig star young children

and often feature their par-

ents or other adults. But

there’s another popular

genre of YouTube kids’ me-

dia: Channels that post

nursery rhymes and ani-

mated sing-alongs at an as-

tounding rate, racking up

millions of views. The pro-

ducers behind them are

elusive. James Bridle, a

British author, wrote an in-

fluential Medium post about

the genre in 2017, detailing

how these videos create

their content and format

based on “algorithmically

generated keywords” —

they’re videos made purely

to perform well on YouTube.

There are some signs the

algorithm is punishing

them. A few of the YouTube

channels Bridle cited in the

post — such as Finger Fam-

ily Songs and Videogyan-

Nursery Rhymes & Baby

Songs — saw views fall more

than 25% in the last month,

per Social Blade. Videogyan

said it has “not witnessed

any major change.” The

other channel could not be

reached. Yet Jason Urgo, So-

cial Blade’s CEO, said some

trends are hard to pinpoint

to one catalyst. “There’s a

million reasons why a chan-

nel would have a spike in

traffic,” Urgo said. YouTube

declined to comment on

those channels.

Over the weekend, Hunt-

er said she saw a traffic surge

from a particular kind of

nursery rhyme video. The

clips explode in animation

and color. Several of the clips

use video captions with

Arabicor Korean phrases

for “learning English.”

(Some videos used both lan-

guages.) The channels

churn out several videos a

week and net revenue from

the ads that run ahead of the

footage. Hunter said she

found them through

YouTube’s recommenda-

tion engine after viewing

clips with English descrip-

tions. Kirkorian, the devel-

opment expert, watched

videos from two of these

channels, ABC Drawing

Land and Coco Bin. She said

that although they are not

harmful, several of their

traits — firing words off

quickly; loud background

music; and frequent text on

the screen — were not con-

ducive to how toddlers best

learn.

“They’re just proliferat-

ing. It’s like a fungus,” said

Hunter of Family Video Net-

work. “It’s almost as if

they’ve found a chink in the

armor and they’re exploiting

it.” Neither of the channels

Hunter flagged posted con-

tact information on their

YouTube pages, so the crea-

tors could not be reached for

comment. Choi, the

YouTube spokeswoman,

said traffic swings in those

channels were unrelated to

the recent algorithm adjust-

ment. She declined to elabo-

rate.

Some creators are still

struggling to understand

why YouTube made the

changes and how to recover

from them. Nathan Laud, a

British animator behind

cartoon song channel Tiny

Tunes, said his daily views

fell about 80% since the algo-

rithm update, mostly be-

cause of a drop in traffic

from YouTube’s recom-

mendation system. “My con-

tent has one primary aim,

and that is to be educa-

tional,” Laud, a father of two,

wrote in an email.

When he asked YouTube

about his traffic drop, an

email from a company sup-

port account replied that

there was a change in the

“discovery systems” that

connect viewers to videos. It

didn’t detail why his videos

were affected. “After further

investigation, we’ve found

no issues on your channel,”

the email read. “Everything

is working as intended.”

Bergen writes for

Bloomberg.

YouTube change frustrates creators

When video service

tweaked its algorithm

for children’s content,

some channels took

an unexpected hit.

By Mark Bergen

SUNDAR PICHAI, Google’s chief executive, has emphasized the “educational” value of YouTube. He said

YouTube would place “a lot of effort” into its Kids app, but that app’s reach is small relative to the main site.

Josh EdelsonAFP/Getty Images

EBay Inc. sued three em-

ployees working at e-com-

merce rival Amazon.com

Inc., alleging that they con-

spired with dozens of other

workers to fraudulently take

high-value online mer-

chants from EBay.

According to the com-

plaint filed Wednesday in

U.S. District Court in San

Jose, where EBay is based,

Amazon managers, as part

of a “racketeering scheme,”

offered incentives for em-

ployees to illegally infiltrate

EBay’s internal messaging

system, create fake EBay ac-

counts and recruit mer-

chants who were using the

company’s marketplace.

EBay in October filed a

lawsuitin California state

court making similar allega-

tions against Amazon. The

dispute is in arbitration. The

new federal lawsuit contains

more details about the scope

of the alleged scheme. EBay

said the Amazon managers

trained employees in how to

create fake EBay accounts,

told them which merchants

to target and taught them

how to craft external emails

in a manner to elude detec-

tion.

The Amazon managers

targeted by the lawsuit are

Sonja Boch, Amanda Sulli-

van Hedger and Ernest Ar-

ambula, all residents of the

Seattle region, according to

the lawsuit. An Amazon

spokeswoman declined to

comment on the lawsuit.

The employees couldn’t be

reached for comment.

The allegations could in-

tensify scrutiny on Amazon

by lawmakers and regula-

tors in the U.S. who are look-

ing at antitrust issues. A key

Amazon defense has been

that it operates in a competi-

tive retail market and online

merchants have many op-

tions for where to sell their

goods, including EBay.

Soper writes for Bloomberg.

EBay sues three Amazon managers

By Spencer Soper

Woody Allen’s $68-million

lawsuit against Amazon for

breach of contract hit a set-

back Wednesday when a fed-

eral judge in New York dis-

missed a number of the di-

rector’s claims.

Allen and his company,

Gravier Productions, filed

suit in February saying that

Amazon Studios reneged on

an agreement to support

and distribute films theat-

rically in at least 500 screens

in top U.S. markets.

Last year, Amazon termi-

nated its agreement, citing

the resurfacing of past abuse

allegations against Allen in

the wake of the #MeToo

movement. In 1992, Dylan

Farrow, his adopted daugh-

ter with Mia Farrow, accused

him of sexually molesting

her as a child. Allen has long

denied the allegations. His

lawsuit pointed out that

Amazon was aware of these

allegations before entering

into an agreement with him.

“There simply was no le-

gitimate ground for Amazon

to renege on its promises,”

the lawsuit said.

The judge dismissed four

of Allen’s eight claims, stat-

ing that the complaint failed

“to allege an actionable

breach of the” multi-picture

acquisition agreement.

Representatives for Am-

azon Studios and Allen

could not be immediately

reached for comment.

Allen can continue to

pursue Amazon for breach

of contract over four films,

including “A Rainy Day in

New York,” which was origi-

nally scheduled to be re-

leased in 2018 but was

pushed back to 2019 after

sexual misconduct allega-

tions surrounding Harvey

Weinstein and Roy Price,

then head of Amazon Stu-

dios. Price was instrumental

in brokering the deal with

Allen.

He resigned from

Amazonin 2017, two years af-

ter he was accused of sexu-

ally harassing a television

producer.

Allen has reportedly

reached international distri-

bution agreements with Me-

diapro, one of Spain’s largest

media groups, and New

York-based FilmNation to

distribute “A Rainy Day in

New York” as well as his next

project, “Rivkin’s Festival.”

A setback for Allen’s Amazon lawsuit

Judge dismisses a

number of director’s

claims in $68-million

breach-of-contract

case against studio.

By Stacy Perman

WOODY ALLENsays

Amazon reneged on a

distribution agreement.

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