Connected TV App Manual Review under COPPA Rule: ‘Guava Juice’

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 CTV app from both the Amazon Fire TV Store and the Roku Channel 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).

Manually reviewed in this post

• Guava Juice (Fire TV) Guava Juice (Roku)

This Week’s Reviewer: Emma Burdis

The 10 COPPA Rule factors

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.

Manual Review: Guava Juice

Likely audience after manual review

• Developer: Future Today Inc.
• Roku App Store ID: 155205
• Fire App ID: B07VW8TNF5
• Privacy Policy
• Emma’s take: The Roku and Fire platform for YouTuber ‘Guava Juice’ showcases gaming videos, challenges and assorted juvenile antics.
  
  

COPPA factors used to determine audience

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The channel has over 1800 videos, the vast majority of which are aimed at children, with subjects ranging from Pokemon bath bombs to “10 things you should not do on the school bus”. In my view, despite being displayed as such, several of these videos are not suitable content for children. For example, “Creepy TikToks You Should NOT Watch At Night!” and “Can I Escape the Carnival of Terror?” However, this genre of horror is a current trend in children’s gaming (e.g. Poppy’s Playtime, Five Nights at Freddie’s) and these videos are in keeping with that. The videos cover a range of subjects including gaming walkthroughs and challenges featuring other YouTube celebrities.

 

 

Each video preview has special effects and vibrant animated overlays which add to their visual appeal.

 

 

With just under 17 million YouTube subscribers, Guava Juice (real name Roi) could certainly be counted as a celebrity figure. Many comments under the YouTube videos are from users stating they love his videos and watched them as a child.

Privacy 

Screenshots of Guava Juice:

About Pixalate’s Trust & Safety Advisory Board

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.