Welcome to Pixalate’s CTV & Mobile App Manual Reviews According to COPPA, a series containing the detailed factors the Trust & Safety Advisory Board educators used to assess an app’s child-directedness.
The educators manually review thousands of mobile apps available in the Google Play & Apple App Stores as well as connected TV (CTV) apps from the Roku Channel Store and Amazon Fire TV App Store using the COPPA Rule factors shown below & make those results available to the public at ratings.pixalate.com.
This post takes a look at a popular CTV app from the Roku Channel Store and the Amazon Fire TV Store. Our reviewer discusses how the subjective factors set forth in the COPPA Rule apply to the app and factor into the reviewer's determination as to whether the app is child-directed or general audience (i.e., it is not targeting children).
The teacher will indicate the factors they relied upon in their assessment using the 10 factors shown below that reflect the 10 child-directed factors in the COPPA Rule.
FGTeeV and FUNnel Vision TV app on Roku and FireTV aggregates content from two YouTube Channels run by the same family. The FGTeeV videos focus on gaming, with walkthroughs of popular child-directed games like Roblox and AmongUs. The FUNnel Vision videos are original content and vlogs by the family such as family game challenges, parody songs, and travel vlogs. The family challenges are especially engaging for children featuring creative games such as human claw machines, dropping of various foods from the staircase, and giant arcade games. Much of the dialogue is child-friendly and engaging, usually directly involving the children from the family.
In addition to the animated games that are being played in the FGTeeV videos, there are numerous static and animated visuals added to the videos that appeal to children. Thought bubbles can often be seen with text to add what someone might be thinking about the things that are going on around them. Green screen animations are used quite often to make the family members appear to be immersed in the virtual world of the games they are playing. Game-like animations are often added to the family’s own original content. Gifs, clip art, and colorful frames are added to videos to make the content more eye-catching for younger viewers.
The sounds in the videos are often reminiscent of a video game, with upbeat music playing in the background and video game-type noises to indicate winning or losing games. Voiceovers are often added to provide an external narration for some of the videos and to voice the different characters within the games.
The entire family, including the four children, are regularly featured in the videos. While some of the children are older than 12 now, there are many videos featuring them when they are younger. Most of the FUNnel Vision videos feature the entire family while the FGTeeV videos usually feature the dad playing alongside one or two of the children.
There are occasional video ads shown for both child-directed and general-audience products. While interacting with the FireTV version of the app I encountered advertisements for shoes, gaming systems, and child-directed games.
The family-focused content and descriptions of the featured family as a “hyperactive crew,” along with mentions of toy unboxings, birthday parties, and “adventures across games like Roblox, Fortnite, GTA, Goozy and more” indicate a more child-directed audience is expected.
This is confirmed by reviews from parents indicating their children are the ones using this app or commenting on the fact that the app is family-friendly.
Privacy
FGTeeV and FUNnel Vision TV do not have a privacy policy listed within the Amazon App Store and it is not linked within the app. The privacy policy listed in the Roku app store is a generic privacy policy that is not specific to FGTeeV and FUNnel Vision TV and has not been updated since May 25, 2018. They do indicate that they collect browser and device information, usage data, and click data from users. They do not specifically address children or minors in any capacity in the privacy policy.
Pixalate’s Trust and Safety Advisory Board was created to bring in individuals with experience using child-directed apps in the classroom to review and assess which apps are child-directed. This manual review process serves to quality check Pixalate’s automated review process. See our full methodology for more information.
Disclaimer
This blog post published by Pixalate is available for informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. By viewing this blog post, the reader understands and agrees that there is no attorney-client relationship between the reader and the blog publisher. The blog should not be used as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in the applicable jurisdiction(s), and readers are urged to consult their own legal counsel on any specific legal questions concerning any specific situation. The content of this blog post reflects Pixalate's opinions with respect to factors that Pixalate believes may be useful to the digital media industry. Pixalate's opinions are just that, opinions, which means that they are neither facts nor guarantees; and this blog post is not intended to impugn the standing or reputation of any entity, person or app, but instead, to report findings pertaining to mobile and Connected TV (CTV) apps.
