This whole COPPA thing with YouTube and the FTC only affects you if you make money off of YouTube via ad revenue. The reason YouTube had to pay up to the FTC is because the ads running on many content creators’ videos were collecting data on children, why that’s a problem unless the product is unsuitable for them is beyond me, (probably something to do with the GDPR in the EU or something) so basically, because YouTube fucked up and never enforced any sort of age restriction to prevent this from happening, and thus letting advertisers collect data on kids, content creators eligible to monetize their videos will now have to mark their videos as suitable or unsuitable for kids.
Frankly, the whole situation is a mess, and there’s tons of different perspectives out there on this right now, everyone from PewDiePie and Markiplier to actual lawyers talking about this, and some numbers being thrown around, like the threat of a whopping $42,000 fine, no you did not read that incorrectly, $42k per video from the FTC for marking your fucking video “incorrectly,†since you have no control over what kids these days click on. Anyway, bullshit scare tactics aside, the short and long of it is that if you don’t make any ad revenue off of YouTube, you have nothing to worry about.