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Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

IMO, a major vulnerability of social media is ability to coopt the influencer model into an advertising scheme laundered of accountability, and this keeps happening.

We recently saw Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes (glorified digital gambling) to kids on YouTube.

There needs to be legislation with serious teeth that brings the standards of online advertising and influence-pushing in line with more established forms of media.

You know when you're watching paid advertising on TV, but on YouTube you're banking that whoever you're watching is being honest. And based on stories like the loot box snafu, those guys were getting six-figure checks to create those videos.

Such errors of judgment deserve serious consequences, plain and simple.

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> IMO, a major vulnerability of social media is ability to coopt the influencer model into an advertising scheme laundered of accountability

That's not a vulnerability or a cooption; the social media influencer model evolved from and was driven by underground viral marketing efforts, which were a thing before social media even existed (at least as a term, though things which might be considered early examples of the class existed.)

So, no, that's not a way the social media influencer model can go wrong, it's a central element of what the social media influencer model has always been.

It's depressing that an event so catastrophic as the infamous Fyre Festival, in which every major "influencer" was very publicly exposed as nothing more than a mouthpiece for hire, failed to make any sort of a dent.

> You know when you're watching paid advertising on TV

I doubt it.

This idea that somehow there was a time where the medias where full of honest and competent people seems delusional to me.

I'm assuming it was just so sandboxed and remote from the average citizen that it felt that way.

Watched the Avengers Endgame last night. At some point "AXE body spray" is mentioned. I am not using AXE (too many chemicals) but telling every teenager on the planet that 'AXE is the favourite brand of Iron Man' is an absolute product placement and DEFINITELY product advertisement.

That's interesting. I thought that everyone was mocking Iron Man for wearing it (people my age wore Axe when we were in middle school). It hadn't occurred to me that this was still probably a net positive for Axe.

I don't think AXE (whichever company owns the brand) paid a bucketload of $$$$$$ for the product placement unless their research had shown that this will make back the investment X5.

On the other side of that paycheck, if producers "just" wanted to make a joke they would simple have a line such as "you are wearing lavender perfume..?" (or something equally silly).

And let's of course not forget them beautiful Audis that I remember well, are 'starring' in every Avengers movie. I wonder when that contract will run out... I searched (duckduckgo) but I didn't get any hits with the information.

You can look up the original, circa 1992, definition of "fake news" over VNR/ADR (video/audio news releases), effectively commercial propaganda:

Barbara Lippert, "General Foods Maxwell House Coffee: For Maxwell House, Ellerbee Doesn't Quite Perk", Adweek, May 22, 1989.

Ed Buxton, "Ad Simulations Require Honesty to Reach Audiences", Ad Day, August 22, 1989

Darren Bosik, "TV Guide attack on VNRs is cheap shot, say video pros", O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, April, 1992.

PRSC developing set of standards codes for VNRs, O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, June 1992, page 46.

Darren Bosik, "Success of 'rotten' VNR told at seminar", O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, August, 1992.

"TV Guide calls VNRs 'fake news,' again", O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, April 1993, page 10.

Darren Bosik, "Video producers debate need for VNR ethics code", O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, April 1993, page 1.

Greg Hazley, "Ethics questioned, VNR pros sound off", O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, April 2004, page 1.

"Fake news is bad news for PR biz", Advertising Age, January 17, 2005, page 16.

Jim Cameron, "PR & Media: The Perfect Ethical Storm" O'Dwyers PR Daily, June 2, 2005. (Sub req'd).

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fake_news

Or 1950s quiz show and payola scandals:

The American quiz show scandals of the 1950s were a series of revelations that contestants of several popular television quiz shows were secretly given assistance by the show's producers to arrange the outcome of an ostensibly fair competition. The quiz show scandals were driven by a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons included the drive for financial gain, the willingness of contestants to "play along" with the assistance, and the lack of then-current regulations prohibiting the rigging of game shows.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s_quiz_show_scandals

Prosecution for payola in the 1950s was in part a reaction of the traditional music establishment against newcomers.[5] Hit radio was a threat to the wages of song-pluggers.[4] Radio hits also threatened old revenue streams; for example, by the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in the USA went into jukeboxes.[5] Still, in the 1950s, independent record companies or music publishers frequently used payola to promote rock and roll on American radio; it promoted cultural diversity and disc jockeys were less inclined to indulge their own personal and racial biases.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Or yellow journalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

The trend arises from time to time, throughout history.

It's countered by notions of journalistic professionalism, e.g., Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)

> Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes

Least covert thing I've ever seen in my life.

> We recently saw Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes

Did Jake Paul mention it was an advertisement or that he had any relationship with the company or game he was promoting?

Most big podcasts have 'live reads' but inter-spliced within the show, but it's very obvious it's an ad (even though they don't always mention that fact directly). Still, what this actually means in practice is still a big question IMO.

What would be the criteria for crossing that line... Non-obvious ads + a target audience of ~90% kids audience? Does it also apply to PG movies/TVs shows on the platform or just Jake Paul-esque 'reality' shows with a young audience? What's about the difference between shows with an obvious relationship with vendors (ie, unboxing) vs just directly hocking it to users?

Firstly, gambling companies shouldn't be allowed to market to kids at all, full stop.

Secondly, Jake Paul appeared to do the bare minimum legally to post the video (a small, singline-line "Sponsored by Mystery Company" disclaimer note is displayed towards the beginning of the video.

What was particularly heinous in this situation was that Jake Paul spent a lot of money betting on certain boxes and wound up winning a handful of high-priced items. They did not make it clear in the video that what they were doing was actual gambling, instead choosing to focus on "winning prizes".

Another YouTuber, Ricegum, even went as far to claim to the effect that this was like investing your money and watching it grow. Absolutely unacceptable language in any advertising case.

Here's one specific perspective of what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ewyEF3Wd9M

I wasn't really familiar with these mystery boxes before commenting, apologies. That seems like pretty explicit gambling. So maybe gambling legislation could cover this? Which helpfully narrows the problem down for legislators to a specific thing targeting kids.

My only concern was harmless false positives getting flagged from over-eager "think of the children" type reactions to new things that are ill defined. So the narrower and more specific the better.

Absolutely, I'm in favor of specific rules around specific types of content.

In most cases, I'd be comfortable with that genre of content if the financial incentives are clearly indicated and acknowledged. The problem is that this doesn't happen as often as it should.

You mentioned podcasts as an example. Podcasts are more like traditional media in that they produce content that usually isn't generated with the help or influence of outside parties. They may advertise, and when they do, it's clear what that you're being advertised and what you're being advertised.

It's still way too easy to blur the lines on YouTube, and there's clearly financial incentive do so. We all know that ML-driven content screening can only do so much, and that we're not likely to get rid of malicious content anytime soon. That's why its important to create a system where content creators follow specific rules around sponsorship disclosures, and social media companies need to do more to make that data accessible to the public.

Very tough to do much legally because these companies are shells operated out of Lower East Moldrovia.

Worth noting that this is the same format that Alex Jones uses. He just plugs product after product, and certainly doesn't go out of his way to indicate the distinction between "content" and "advertising", if there can even be said to be such a distinction.

Maybe the solution is just to make it illegal to hock any sort of commercial product without prominently disclosing any financial interest.

Josh Hawley, Missouri Senator, just introduced a bill actually.

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