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Rising Instagram Stars Are Posting Fake Sponsored Content
- village-idiot 8y agoNot surprising. If sponsored content is a signifier of success, people will fake it.
- dmitrybrant 8y agoNews at 11.
- bobthepanda 8y agoSmells like an FCC regulation waiting to happen.
- untog 8y agoSounds very difficult to regulate. It's not actually advertising, so what regulations are people actually breaking?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Smells like an FCC regulation waiting to happen I don't see a problem. Users want influencers backed by brands. Brands want influencers with lots of users. Unless the influencer falsely represents their sponsorship history to a brand, this "hack" doesn't hurt anyone. The worst-off party are users. They follow someone they think is shilling products but is actually shilling themselves. Given this is Instagram, I don't see that as a huge problem.
- Traster 8y agoMost of the time this doesn't hurt anyone, but let's say for the sake of argument that one of these influencers isn't a mildly attractive middle-class teenage girl with thoughts that don't extend beyond family friendly fun and self-enrichment. Let's say instead you have a 25 year old man who started out with inspirational instagram posts have slowly started to cross the line into far-right slogans and maga hats. Now you don't just have some randomer endorsing your product, suddenly your family friendly business is being accused of been forking money over to neo-nazis.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoWe get it, you use reddit.
- Harvey-Specter 8y agoAre you suggesting some law preventing individuals from commenting on products and services unless they're being paid to do so? Or only if the company providing those goods/services doesn't like what is being said, or who is saying it?
- bobthepanda 8y agoAt the very least people need to be liable for consequences that might occur to the victim company if they are falsely representing themselves as being sponsored by them. Freedom of speech doesn't cover false representations.
- thoughtpol 8y agoYour example is a little misguided...
- burgerboy 8y agoEveryone who doesn't agree with the left is a nazi - got it.
- willart4food 8y agoYou mean FTC (T=Trade).
- willart4food 8y agoWell, on a positive note, since they pay for those products themselves, they can write off the cost from their taxes. #thot_patrol https://www.reddit.com/r/thot_patrol/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thot_patrol/
- BadassFractal 8y agoI like justice porn as much as anybody else, but I wonder if some of these outlets become more about venting one's misogyny, more than about pointing out wrongdoing? Lots of people out there who ascribe their grievances to a group of "others", be that immigrants, ethnicities, genders etc. I can see those channels turning into a confirmation bias echo chamber pretty quick.
- Rotten194 8y agoIMO, it is just misogyny. They don't target the equivalent esports and gaming personalities (mostly male) who do the same thing, and it's couched in the language of "thots" instead of, you know, something thats not a derogatory term for women. Plus, I find it really hard to believe that most of these people actually care about fair taxation -- are they also informing the IRS about the kid on their block making money mowing lawns, or their server friends not reporting their cash tips? Give me a break.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- freehunter 8y agoIt's literally just misogyny. It has absolutely nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with putting women in their place. I mean, the fourth most upvoted post on there celebrates the indiscriminate death of thousands of women. Absolutely disgusting. It's just a group of men celebrating the fact that they hate all women simply for existing.
- matte_black 8y agoWill this ultimately lower the revenue from sponsored content if so many people are tripping over themselves to pay companies to post their content?
- Rotten194 8y ago> Though it may seem like a useful tactic when you’re starting out, more established influencers worry that fake sponcon is creating a race to the bottom. Because brands can piggyback off of waves of unpaid influencer promoters, some have ceased paying influencers completely, or now pay rates far below what they previously spent.
- matte_black 8y agoThat’s what the article says but articles say a lot of things and I’d rather hear from someone more enlightened...
- BadassFractal 8y agoI've always been fascinated with the paths and lives of hustlers and con men, people who (try to) make a living misleading others about their success and credentials. Obviously this is as old as humanity itself, and it always makes for a good story. Social engineering is fascinating. Anybody remember good old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Is_Nothing_(video_r%C3%A9sum%C3%A9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Is_Nothing_(video_r... from the dark ages of the Internet?
- jjeaff 8y agoThe role of "confidence man" used to be relegated to a small few with enough brains to pull it off and not enough morality to stop them. Now, those select few con men have been using the internet to teach masses of wannabes that are too dumb to come up with the con, and too deluded to realize the immorality of what they are doing.
- scarejunba 8y agoHaha, this is great. It’s a race to the bottom because most influencers aren’t providing anything unique: One is as good as another for the number of people they reach.
- catacombs 8y agoIt's all a sham. It amazes me that some people simply need to be attractive, wealthy, live an impossible lifestyle or all three and make hundreds of thousands of dollars from brands on a social media platform. Many of these people hang on every update to Instagram, to the point that, eventually, the platform will be too big to fail. I'd love to see the day when Instagram vanishes and all the influencers who put all their eggs in the filtered baskets are knocked back to reality.
- mdolon 8y agoThis feels like a scene straight out of Idiocracy. The brands must be pleasantly confused.
- lolc 8y agoMeet the fake shill. A sad byproduct of consumerism. Sometimes I'm suprised at society. Then I'm annoyed at my surprise. Then I tell myself not everybody is like this.
- avip 8y agoSo finally we've come full cycle. The wannabe "influencer" with his fake "followers" bought 1$ a pound on fiverr, is posting fake "sponsored content", so social media "marketers" would perceive him as valuable enough to (fakely) promote their (probably faked) product. I ran out of double-quotes, you could legitly double-quote any other word up there.
- snaky 8y agoThe question is what should be the next logical step?
- dustingetz 8y agobrands stop paying because influencers doing it for free
- GuiA 8y agoPeople realizing that marketing is all smokes and mirrors BS and starting to not give a crap, and instead buying things from local producers and manufacturers based on how it contributes to and benefits their own community. It’s the holiday season, please let me dream :-)
- avip 8y agoFor a dream that is depressingly minor! How about people stop buying things they don't need. Lost crafts of fixing things are thriving again. As result, elderly are re-introduced into society as they have the lost knowledge. Deurbanization starts when people discover they can't grow their own food on concrete. The 9-5 day slowly shifts back to a dynamic sunrise-to-sunset schedule. Cars are banned from small communities because emission degrades the local crops. As a result, kids rediscover they can safely play outside, without the limiting supervision of adults. That starts a positive feedback loop that collapses the (a)social networks, and as a byproduct the whole economy of attention.
- ndnxhs 8y ago
- ACow_Adonis 8y agoWhy give them (and their industry) the respect they so desperately crave by calling them influences and brand ambassadors when the English language already has an entire cornucopia of applicable organic words describing this phenomenon. Shill, plant, phoney, stooge, wannabe, peddler. Don't let the marketers win :p
- pmlnr 8y agoA fake internet, with real names, vs a real internet with pseudonyms, 10-15 years ago. Interesting. Maybe one of those things need to be fake to keep the universe in equivalent exchange.
- Para2016 8y agoFrom the article: "If someone who is 20 years old watching YouTube or Instagram sees these people traveling with brands, promoting brands, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do everything they could to get in on that.” -- It's interesting to see quotes like this, especially in the context of the "everything bubble". 2019 is going to be economically horrendous, these people won't survive.
- catacombs 8y ago> these people won't survive. I already said it in another comment, but I'd love to see what would happen if Instagram just shuts downs or if they are impacted heavily by the incoming recession.
- Proven 8y agoSo what? Don’t watch/listen.