Should we stop supporting them with our eyes for taking sponsorships from shady companies?

Edit: I took my first step and unsubscribed from the channel and I will continue to withhold my viewership to those that don’t take better care of the viewers.

Likely doesn’t matter, but I’m on a roll of not giving my money to companies that are immoral so why not do the same with my eyes.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    At least consider it. It will make shady sponsors less valuable and more genuine sponsors more valuable.

    They absolutely deserve to be blasted in the comments for a bad sponsor. It will make people reconsider their viewing decisions. If the video itself also wasn’t great, don’t be afraid to give it a big fat dislike, especially if you have the return YouTube dislike extension.

    Additionally, if there are too many ads and sponsors, make your voice heard in the comments, and the creator might be sympathetic. I certainly am when I’m on the receiving end of a comment like that on my channel.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      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

      • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
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        8 months ago

        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)).

        • lavalamp_tornado@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          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.

          • tiredofsametab@kbin.run
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            8 months ago

            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)

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          8 months ago

          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

          • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Wow 😲 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.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    I’m curious, what would happen if I, as a creator, had been contacted by a sponsor and then if the sponsor was shady, decided to not only say no to the contract, but also rag on them in the video where the sponsor would have been shilled?

  • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Dr 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.

  • pelletbucket@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    pretty sure his video about Charmin flushable wipes being the only actually flushable wipes on the planet was bullshit

  • AhismaMiasma@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    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.

  • R...@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    To some degree, certainly! If at some point it comes out that a certain sponsor is just total shit, a content creator can be made aware of that. Although, with all these things, it is not always as easy to just drop a sponsor i suppose, there is always contracts involved and all of that. So not expecting a creator to be able to drop a sponsor all of a sudden.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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

    • Kumikommunism [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      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. Not nearly quite as bad as him yet though.

      And he’s made several videos about failures of capitalism, wherein he very obviously refuses to identify it as the problem. Like the one about planned obsolescence or leaded gasoline and another I’m forgetting.

    • Pirky@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There 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.

    • Danterious@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      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.

      Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

  • LeroyJenkins@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      most people don’t know anything about it. they skip sponsors and watch the videos. it’s not complicated.

      • LeroyJenkins@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        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.