Weekly Update - September 7, 2019: Android 10, YouTube, AdSense

This week Android Q graduated to Android 10, YouTube announced new privacy practices for content aimed at kids and a new fashion hub, AdSense will require re-review of inactive sites, you can find more movies and TV shows in search and much more.

Android 10 was released for Pixel phones. It didn’t get sweet Q nickname, and the official statue isn’t quite as much fun as previous versions, but has some nice features, like device Dark Theme, new gesture navigation, better control over notifications, Focus Mode to silence distracting apps, and improved privacy controls.
AdSense is now requires sites that are “inactive” for at least five months to be re-reviewed to display ads again. If any of your sites have been inactive for at least four months, you should see a notice on the Sites page of your AdSense account. You can reactivate a website by placing ads on it. If you do that before the five month deadline, your site will not have to be reviewed again.
Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right. Or just open YouTube.com/fashion. This is a new hub for content from style, fashion and beauty creators.
As part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), YouTube will start treating all “kids content” as if children are watching. On those videos, YouTube will limit data collection, stop serving personalized ads, and remove comments and notifications. Creators will be required to label “child-directed content” on their channels. Some creators of kids content are concerned this will affect their channels and income. More details will be provided before the changes go into effect in about four months (early January 2020). In addition to these changes, YouTube was fined $170 million, and has pledged to spend $100 million over the next three years to help with the creation of “original, thoughtful children’s content”.
YouTube published an overview of recent improvements in their efforts to remove harmful content. After updates to their hate speech policy in June, 17,000 channels were terminated, and 100,000 videos were removed. LightCodeGaming has a great breakdown of all the numbers from YouTube’s latest transparency report: channels terminated for hateful and abusive content accounted for only 0.4% of the total, harrassment for another 0.4% and terrorism another 0.5%. A whopping 90.3% of the channel terminations last quarter (3,676,012 channels!) were for spam.
YouTube no longer automatically publishes Community Contributions of translated content for your channel. Why? Because spam and abuse were making it through YouTube’s filters. Now channel owners need to manually approve any translations before they are published.
YouTube Live Control Room is officially out of beta, The official YouTube Creators channel has a brief overview of how to use Live Control Room to set up and manage live streams.
Microsoft live streaming platform Mixer has implemented a 24-hour Streamer Review process to “validate and monitor” new streamers. They have also rolled out new live chat moderation tools, and retired the Mixer Create app. They recommend the Streamlabs app for streaming from your mobile device.
It’s now easier to verify your domain in Google Search Console. Google has worked with domain registrars to set up auto-DNS verification, which will guide you through the process.
Writer Michael K Spencer has experienced a 70% drop in Medium earnings over the summer, and says many other Medium creators were similarly affected. While Medium hasn’t provided him enough data to understand why that is happening, he’s noticed “Medium started boosting only its own publications on the front page and editor’s picks and thus hogging the “popular” trending spotlight. This is to boost their own paid publications that have product placements and book arrangements.” At the least, the lack of transparency seems to be a problem. And it points to the risk of publishing on someone else’s platform and depending on their algorithms and promotion for views. (And yes, his article is posted on Medium behind the paywall, so not everyone will even be able to see it.)
Now you can make hands-free audio and video calls with Google Assistant starting in the WhatsApp Android app. Just say, “Hey Google, WhatsApp video Mary” if you want to start a video call with Mary. That's in addition to controlling messaging on Android by SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, Viber, Telegram, Android Messages and more.
Google has a new mobile interface for finding movies and TV shows to watch in the US. Do a search like “what to watch” and then tap the start button in the “Top picks for you” carousel. Swipe right or left, Tinder-style, to help Google improve your recommendations. Tap on any show to see where you can rent, buy, or watch for free. And if you have a website or blog with movie lists, use the new Movie List carousel structured data markup so users can explore the list in the Google Search results.
Apple Music has a new web interface in beta (beta.music.apple.com) that lets subscribers listen to tunes on any device, including a Chromebook.
Facebook Dating is now live in the US and 19 other countries. Facebook reassures that it’s totally opt-in, and they won’t match you with your Friends or anyone you have blocked. There is a Secret Crush feature that can match you with people you know, as long as both of you list the other as a Crush. Maybe this is appealing for folks who spend a lot of time on Facebook?
Twitter has temporarily disabled posting by SMS, except in a few locations that “depend on SMS to Tweet”. This change comes in the wake of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey having his phone number stolen and used to post hateful and abusive Tweets by the hackers. Since Tweeting by SMS doesn't require any password or other authentication, it’s not clear when - or if - Twitter will be able to restore SMS posting securely in the future.
Finally, there’s a new video from the Google Product Expert Program meetup in Sydney, Australia. This is one of three regional meetups this year.

Read on for more news, updates and tips for YouTubers, businesses advertisers and more. Subscribe to get the Weekly Update in your email inbox or favorite feed reader. Miss last week’s update? Get it here.

Image: Android 10 will always be Quince in my heart. Image of quince by Waldrebell from Pixabay

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