Dead Upload Day

Submission 9,050

Part of a series on Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). [View Related Entries]

Overview

Dead Upload Day, also known as the hashtag #DeadUploadDay, is a day of protest against the YouTube's procedures to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Protestors who are content creators have pledged to not upload to YouTube in hopes of YouTube adopting different procedures.

Background

On November 12th, 2019, the YouTube Creators channel published a video on the new regulations, following Google's $170 million settlement for violating COPPA and collecting data from children. The post received more than 1.3 million views (shown below).

On November 19th, Twitter ^[1] user @emanvidmaker tweeted, "Us and COPPA need to find a better solution for this #DeadUploadDay" (shown below). That day, they also posted about the protest on the /r/YouTube subreddit.^[2] The post received more than 1,800 (96% upvoted) and 345 comments in less than two days.

Developments

Online Reaction

Over the next few days, people shared the image on Twitter. Twitter^[3] user @OldMohawk tweeted the image with caption "Spread the word!" The post recieved more than 11,000 likes and 8,100 retweets in less than three days (shown below, left).

YouTuber Keemstar tweeted,^[4] "I feel like Greta Thunberg skipping school on Friday’s! #DeadUploadDay." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 4,800 likes and 430 retweets (shown below, center).

Some criticized the effectiveness of the protest. Twitter^[5] user @LunarControl responded to Keemstar, writing, "There is no reason to boycott youtube because they have no control over COPPA" (shown below, right).

On November 21st, The Daily Dot ^[6] published a report on the protest.