dependencyinjectionVeritasium's new video on Jumping Spiders is having its sponsor Better Help on blast in the top comments. Should we hold content creators to account?
SnokenKeekaGuardVeratasium had some similar issue a few years ago too, didn’t he?
I recall Tom Nichols making a video on them and also perhaps an incorrect video about electricity so probably.
Kumikommunism [comrade/them, any]On the electricity video, he was actually correct. It was mostly a matter of semantics and people clinging to the common models of electricity.
I’m not really sure it was just semantics. He was technically correct the light would get some power right away, but the thing everyone would understand when hearing the main assertion, i.e. the light is fully lit and the circuit is in its relatively steady, final state, is very much not true.
starman2112The electricity one wasn’t so much him being wrong as it was him being really bad at communicating that one point
His video with one of those “genetic research” companies was very bad anti-privacy propaganda, where they used the excuse of catching the Golden State Killer as justification for storing and using the related genetic information of masses of unconsenting individuals.
He’s also dipped several times into making state department propaganda like Smarter Every Day consistently does which people have a problem with. Not nearly quite as bad yet though.
And he’s made several videos about failures of capitalism, wherein he very obviously refuses to identify it as the problem. Like his one about planned obsolescence or leaded gasoline and another I’m forgetting.
I’ve watched his leaded gasoline video, capitalism doesn’t seem like something he would need to bring up? Unless I’m not remembering the video correctly, the cause of the problems aren’t something he goes into
He also has a habit of making videos that are just long ads, like that self-driving car, or that shampoo
PirkyThere was a video he did on a startup taxi service using self driving cars. Basically the entire thing was an advertisement for that company.
Then another Youtuber, Tom Nicholas, released a video about that a few months later and how it’s an issue. I’ll have to watch it again as I don’t remember what he specifically talks about.
Then another Youtuber, Tom Nicholas, released a video about that a few months later and how it’s an issue. I’ll have to watch it again as I don’t remember what he specifically talks about.
Why You Should Want Driverless Cars On Roads Now
Yeeep I remember the saga bc of the Tom Nicholas video
Onno (VK6FLAB)Wow, those comments are a dumpster fire.
Not sure what Derek 's best response might be. I’m thinking that this video will likely be taken down and replaced by one without a sponsor.
Right. You have to scroll quite a way to see something other than him being called out.
That seems unlikely considering contracts and legal stuff
A channel absolutely should be held accountable for the sponsors they accept. Advertisements from YouTube are mostly outside channel owners control, but sponsors are not.
I don’t support channels with unethical sponsors. It can be tough sometimes.
I’m out of the loop, what did Better Help do?
I think part of it is selling mental health data to companies such as meta.
I dont know if it was anonymised but either way it’s horrible
Sharing users’ mental health information with advertisers and connecting LGBT users with Christian faith-based therapists are the two big issues I’m aware of
Yikes! Yeah, that’s messed up. Thanks for the info!
Better Help is also awful for the therapists, it basically turns them into contracted gig workers and they’re less invested in their clients’ success. It’s also awful for the clients, because going to therapy is hard and requires hard work and facing some difficult things. The platform makes it overly easy to switch therapists whenever, and a sizeable chunk of people will jump shark when challenged, continuing to throw money down the Better Help hole with no progress to show for it
Better Help is also awful for the therapists, it basically turns them into contracted gig workers and they’re less invested in their clients’ success. It’s also awful for the clients, because going to therapy is hard and requires hard work and facing some difficult things. The platform makes it overly easy to switch therapists whenever, and a sizeable chunk of people will jump shark when challenged, continuing to throw money down the Better Help hole with no progress to show for it
YarHarSuperstarWow 😲 I’m so surprised that a therapy app with shortened appointments and suspicious pricing is bad for anyone! There’s no possible way to have anticipated such a thing would fail in such a harmful way.
Is there a source for this? I'm generally very positive on therapy and helping people get access to it, but fuck them if that's the case (and fuck the US healthcare system in general. Although I will say that where I'm at now, Japan, is even worse with mental healthcare not being covered by insurance (only psychiatry is covered; some psychologists having sliding fee scales but sometimes it's students and, if you don't speak Japanese well enough to articulate your issues in the language, then the premium for foreign language support is real)).
Just as an FYI: although laws are strict about US-based therapists practicing only in states where they are licensed, there are no laws regulating international practice of psychotherapy. If the people you’re talking about have a hard time in Japanese, they may be able to to find a telehealth therapist in their country of origin who speaks their native language and is embedded in their native culture. You have to deal with timezone shenanigans, but it beats going without. Something to consider.
Yeah, I fully agree. The yen being super weak right now has put some people off of such (it was about 110-115 yen: 1 dollar when I came, now it's 160 T_T)
Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]I watch basically any channel with 100,000+ subscribers through Piped so that my views or retention or engagement don’t get counted by YouTube.
It’s likely they signed a contract with them before the (second) controversy, I feel like a better way to do this is to see if they continue with the shitty sponsors
But they should be held accountable for this kind of stuff
No. It’s their channel and they can do whatever they want, just as how you can handle yourself however you want. Just do as you’ve done and remove yourself from something that conflicts with your opinion and everyone’s happy. Life is often that simple
“No. But, in a snarky tone yes.”
ah yes, a “fallout 4 no”
Philip de Franco did a better help sponsor and his community went up in arms about it. now he doesn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. surprised more communities don’t care about it
most people don’t know anything about it. they skip sponsors and watch the videos. it’s not complicated.
most people.
Meaning not all people, meaning some people can get screwed over. By a content creator they’re supporting.
You’re right it’s not complicate. Just unsubscribe from people that don’t respect the viewers. Or keep watching and only think about yourself and how it affects you.
maybe follow the conversation before you tell me what my own words mean.
—surprised more communities don’t care about it
—most people don’t know anything about it
meaning not all people, meaning some people do know about it, which is why some communities do care, but most don’t know, which is why more communities don’t seem to care.
My apologies.
I was just replying to comments when I woke up and it’s hard to be diligent of comments that are in a wider thread vs top level comments.
I should do better and I will try.
no worries
yo dawg I’m not telling you what to think but what you’re saying is the fundamental thing the county is made of time and time again. you’re just saying these things as a way to see the voices of the big blue building that sacrifices and sacrifices for what? you don’t even know.
is this a bot
then what is that nonsense supposed to be
Veritasium is YouTube propaganda. It’s well documented - Derek takes sponsor money and gets people killed in the process. I blocked Derek on all platforms the day Tom put this documentary video out.
Veritasium: A Story of YouTube Propaganda
Go to https://surfshark.deals/tomnicholas and use code TOMNICHOLAS to get 83% off a 2 year plan plus 3 extra months for free!Watch this video ad-free on Nebu...
I’ve hated him for so long. Glad to see it’s getting some light
Funnily enough the person that made this video had a little controversy on the vape-o-nomics video when he was talking about how subscription services were bad but then immediately pivoted towards an ad read for a subscription service.
Eventually it was removed (without a comment talking about, it happened silently) but still this stuff reaches everyone eventually.
I do that kind of thing, yes. Although I usually find it so distasteful, that I lose interest in watching other videos anyways.
But yeah, especially when it’s a channel making educational content, there’s a chance that some viewers take the sponsored section as general educational content (no matter, whether that’s because they’re gullible, young or did not pay attention when the sponsor segway happened).
There’s also various tech channels which recommend products that are objectively worse than the alternatives, or even exert malware-like behaviour. Those also immediately lose any and all respect from me.
Obviously, if it was a genuinely good product, it wouldn’t need the sponsorship deal for people to make videos about it. So, I do understand the struggle.
But everyone wanting to make a living off of media has that struggle. If I artificially inflate the view numbers of one media creator, the others receive less sponsorship money.
MartineskiDr becky (atrology channel) also did a few sponsorships with them and got lots of unhappy comments under those videos. Not sure if she still sticks with them or no. Aaaaaaaand I just checked her last video from 7 hours ago and she still gets sponsorships from them. Top comments are asking her to stop accepting those sponsorships pointing out their doings.
EveryMuffinIsNowEncryptedDr
astrology channel
One of these things does not add up…
I had to look up the term to notice what I did. I will leave it be I guess. Haha
But it’s literally a different thing?
Wait, what term? I wasn’t saying you made a mistake; I was pointing out the ridiculousness of someone being a doctor but dealing in such unscientific nonsense as astrology.
Yep, hahaha. Not a native english speaker and I confused the terms.
Hey no worries. Sorry that I came across as correcting you. x3
I should have been corrected tbh.
Fair enough, I suppose.
she’s not bad but there are better science/astronomy channels. I watch Anton Petrov religiously, I don’t think he even does sponsors
Hurculina Drubmanpretty sure his video about Charmin flushable wipes being the only actually flushable wipes on the planet was bullshit
Mark Rober was a big disappointment too. he made a pretty weird video about autism, using the fact that his son has it as like qualification for him to talk about it. folks with autism tried to talk to him about the problematic nature of the video in the comments, and he just blocked them. plus, he partnered with NXT for Autism, which does work with Autism Speaks, which is genuinely a hate group that’s trying to exterminate autism, and, last I checked, had no autistic people on the board.
I Am Autism commercial by Autism Speaks
Try to understand that influencers and content creators are human beings and not infallible. I don’t think Mark or Derek are the greatest people in the world, but they are trying to put educational and entertaining content out into the world, and don’t seem to be malicious in intent.
Give them a break and see where they land down the road. If they turn out to be trash, judge em all you want. As someone that doesn’t spend the time and effort to pass my experience on to others, I’ll give them a bit of wiggle room on the politics associated with operating in the public attention economy.
Haha. That would be too sensible.
lol no. he had a chance, when we tried to have a reasonable conversation with him. his views on autism suck, he partnered with a bad actor, and he muted people who tried to talk to him about it. that’s three different problems.
Yes, they’re not infallible. That’s why they should be held to account for their actions. You’re the one saying to treat them like they make no mistakes.