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YouTube Stars Are Pushing a Shady Gambling Site

270 points by smacktoward 8y ago

dspillett 8y ago
The linked site seems broken ATM (no certificate being served, page content blank), but the WBM has it: https://web.archive.org/web/20190103122009/https://www.thedailybeast.com/youtubes-biggest-stars-are-pushing-a-shady-polish-gambling-site https://web.archive.org/web/20190103122009/https://www.theda...
umvi 8y ago
I can't tell if this article was the original or if H3H3's video was the original, but H3H3 also covers this - https://youtu.be/3ewyEF3Wd9M https://youtu.be/3ewyEF3Wd9M TL;DW - Youtubers with large young audiences are promoting loot box style gambling. Youtube seems like the wild west. On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life, huge youtubers promoting gambling to children, elsagate, etc. On the light side we have people's videos being flagged for copyright violations over literal sounds of nature, music they produced themselves, or music playing in the background. Also "fair use" doesn't exist on YouTube - a 1 second clip is enough for a company to claim your video apparently. There are still a lot of niche channels I love on YouTube but I would never want to try to make a living producing content on that platform myself... seems too volatile.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  I think the Internet has created a world in which the number of steps one needs to take before running headfirst into the Earth's greatest evils is getting shorter by the year. It's just going to get harder and harder to insulate yourself from this stuff. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing. How do you think that could be a good thing? Seems like an obviously bad thing to me.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      More awareness of evil means more political will to clean it up.
      - spookthesunset 8y ago
        > More awareness of evil means more political will to clean it up. Maybe, but it seems like people who fall into the echo chamber just vote for the evil doers instead.
- bluetidepro 8y ago
  I love me some H3H3, and watched this the other day. To me, the craziest part is that YouTube promoted it. To be fair, I'm sure it was an automated system that did it, and not by choice of YouTube but still. Seems like a thing they should have easily been able to quickly correct/fix manually.
  - Conlectus 8y ago
    YouTube has gotten flak for being biased in their "Trending" promotions recently, so maybe they've taken more of a hands-off approach.
    - bluetidepro 8y ago
      Yeah, I'm sure it's somewhat of a lose-lose for them. If they do it by hand, people will bitch about them "playing favorites", but if a automated system does it, you have problems like this.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        Which is how you get people like me screaming at the platforms: "Stop with this trending nonsense, stop with this "your friends liked" nonsense, stop with this "in case your missed it" nonsense, take your hands off me and just let me mindlessly click and watch whatever videos I feel like watching and react to the tweets I want to react to, I don't need your damn help knowing what my friends are doing or feeling like I need to like something because the platform detected that Jim liked it six hours ago since my last login". For all this talk about FOMO, it's impossible for me, personally, to NOT look at the culpability the platforms have in it by nagging me all the time about what everyone else is doing and be annoyed by it. I know what they're doing, I see it. I don't need your helicopter parenting to know that, twitter. Keep the trolls in line, keep the lights on, otherwise get out of the way.
        all2 8y ago
        In the absence of deliberate algorithms a site like YT has few things to fall back on: - Sort by time. - Sort by creator/channel. - Sort by creator selected content type (fallible). - Search (a la Google, which sucks on Youtube). - ??? I wonder if these would be sufficient? Maybe something like Reddit/HN is necessary; some human aggregation and interaction. Would a Reddit style interface work well for video? A landing page with trending videos (upvotes, comments, threads, etc.), links out to popular subjects/sub-reddits, and so on. Perhaps with an interface like HN which forces people together in one kind of communication (in threads), generous wait periods for new members, and so on... I suppose that only considers the viewer's use-case. What about monetization? What about creators?
- qeternity 8y ago
  > On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life Can you explain for those of us out of the loop...
  - PopeDotNinja 8y ago
    I tried googling around for a couple minutes, but only found videos about human trafficking hosted in YouTube. I'm curious, too.
    - dijit 8y ago
      paymoneywubby did a video about it last month. https://youtu.be/hc4HzbD0GLI https://youtu.be/hc4HzbD0GLI
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhart99 8y ago
    I think he is referring to these sorts of videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5aPc2wlLiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5aPc2wlLiA which are "slice of life" videos taken to their extreme. For an example, here is a slice of life one that isn't so extreme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkE3e7lT_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkE3e7lT_g
    - PopeDotNinja 8y ago
      Could bootstrapping one or more YouTube channels starring trafficking victims be profitable enough to attract organized crime? Could someone who knows a bit about YouTube channel growth & revenue streams crunch some numbers to post here? I assume that "bikini girl" prepended to any video title attract more views than videos of me. "old, chubby bald dude fishing in real life" doesn't seem like a great clickbait title. If there's enough money to be made in "slice of life" videos, I guess it could attract the attention of human traffickers.
    - 8y ago
- CSMastermind 8y ago
  > On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life, Wait what?
- gowld 8y ago
  Why would you assume that woman (singular) is trafficked, and not an entrepenuer? Do you think her whole family was abducted and held hostage?
  - umvi 8y ago
    I honestly don't know if the woman in paymoneywubby's video is trafficked or not, but there were a lot of red flags that made me really uncomfortable when combined: - Frequency and quantity of the uploads indicated she was doing these videos more than full-time - No verbal interaction other than an occasional glare at cameraman - Vietnam, not (say) America or Europe I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt, but something makes me deeply uncomfortable about it.
    - docker_up 8y ago
      This is deeply racist. Just because she's Vietnamese and not white, your unconscious bias suggests to you that she's a victim of human trafficking?
      - jki275 8y ago
        No, it's not. Southeast Asian, specifically Filipino, Thai, and Vietnamese women are the most commonly trafficked ethnic group worldwide.
        docker_up 8y ago
        You're wrong. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worst-countries-for-modern-slavery/277037/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-...
        jki275 8y ago
        That article doesn't address the discussion. First, it's five years old, and second it's talking about something that is somewhat different. I might also note that I lived in southeast Asia for many years. There's a huge amount of trafficking that isn't being reported to the Atlantic website or the US State department there.
- colpabar 8y ago
  H3H3 is just as guilty of this. They were one of MANY channels advertising a scam "therapy" service called Better Help to viewers with mental health issues. While he did acknowledge it, it was only after being called out in a Pewdiepie video, and he seemed much more upset about getting caught than promoting such a scam of a service.
  - fokinsean 8y ago
    What's scammy about Better Help?
    - colpabar 8y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUEnagP69c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUEnagP69c This happened a while ago so I don't remember everything, but I believe the company was like an Uber for therapy, rather than providing therapy directly.
    - dijit 8y ago
      A few months ago Pewdiepie posted a video[0] that roughly took the piss out of Better Help and their practices and pointed out the irony of an online counseling service that claims to be a cheaper alternative to actual therapy, but still lists in their terms of service that you need actual therapy and that what they offer is only supplemental in nature. So basically they're engaging in borderline false advertising targeted at people who are by definition emotionally and psychologically vulnerable and compromised. And the youtube side of it is that a whole host of youtubers promoted this service on their platforms. Not to mention that their terms dictate they can sell your data. Which obviously is unexpected from a“medical” company. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU
      - larkeith 8y ago
        > Not to mention that their terms dictate they can sell your data. Which obviously is unexpected from a“medical” company. That seems like it must be skirting the HIPAA line very closely.
- samstave 8y ago
  >Youtube seems like the wild west. YT to me is more like Kowloon Walled City - massive and amazing as a monolithic entity, and you can find amazing gems - but when you look closely, its a lawless cess-pool with a confusing and almost evil method of getting around - and things that shouldn't be anywhere near each-other are practically roommates, rather than neighbors. And you should not trust any strangers you come across, no matter what they promise you. Also, its a terrible place for children to be unattended - and is largely ungoverned by those who should be governing it...
bluetidepro 8y ago
[a bit of a tangent rant here] Beyond how despicable it is that these YouTube "stars" are promoting this, it's really interesting to see how these concept of a website even came about. I don't know much about the origins of it, but I'm going to assume they took a play from the modern gaming industry playbook. It was only a matter of time that someone realized modern gaming companies are "geniuses" in their execution of this same thing in their games. It's crazy that these gaming companies are causing such big problems for our youth by all the microtransactions and addiction problems in their triple A title games. I know some countries have done a great job regulated it (Germany, I believe?), but that regulation really needs to make its way to the USA to kill off these greedy parasites. It really is starting to be a black cloud around a lot of the modern gaming industry. I would rather pay double the price of a game (~$60), and have no microtransactions at all, vs these games that charge full price and then put have the content behind a paywall of microtransactions -- cosmetic or not. /rant haha
- jdietrich 8y ago
  It's kinda Valve's fault. Team Fortress 2 was the first major game in the west to implement loot boxes; the CS:GO skins economy spawned a legion of scummy third-party gambling sites, from which this site is clearly derived. Weirdly, it may also partly be the fault of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - leppr 8y ago
    Isn't it ironic to blame Valve, when they're pretty much the only ones doing it right ? By restricting microtransactions to cosmetic elements, the thing they play on is one's vanity. Players who are content exploring the gameplay can do so unencumbered. There is no "special club" for players who buy items. They don't beat you more easily in the games. The main focus is still on winning the matches. There is no incentive to buy those cosmetic items except players thinking "I want to look cool". Whatever Valve may do, that's not a vice they are responsible for creating, or that anyone is ever exempt from (we all have to buy clothes). They merely brought it, opt-in, to their games.
vorpalhex 8y ago
YouTube is a website that entirely fulfills the idea that no publicity is bad publicity. Which is a shame, because there's shows like Binging with Babish which are quite nice. edit - remove comment because apparently Logan Paul and Jake Paul are not the same person, they just seem like it.
- smcl 8y ago
  That was a different Paul brother - Logan Paul - albeit he's an equally awful person.
- generalpf 8y ago
  The suicide forest incident was Logan Paul, his brother.
- FiveSquared25 8y ago
  People were saying that for years. We didn’t listen. Now we are all ears. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
trw 8y ago
That Bryan “Ricegum” Le guy is insultingly ugly. This website should've pixelated his face.
mabbo 8y ago
I'm actually pretty impressed by how clever and insidious the "YouTuber" advertising game is. All these 'personalities' and 'stars' put out whatever content continues to get views- and there's a beautiful survival of the fittest game going on there- and then once they have subscribed viewers they can subtly promote anything at all and be paid for it. My wife watches a bunch of 'cleaning' and 'makeup/style' YouTubers. All I see when I view it are advertisements pretending to be personal videos. She loves it. The ones for kids are especially creepy when you really dig into what's going on. They've convinced people to subscribe to advertisements so they see them as soon as they're posted. That's even better than Facebook convincing everyone to give them all their personal information so it can be 'shared'.
- eli 8y ago
  I think fashion magazines have been mostly ads with style guides and tips mixed in for a long time -- and those aren't event free to read!
  - kbenson 8y ago
    A fashion magazine is sort of like walking into a market or bazaar. Part of the reason for being there is to see all the interesting things people are trying to sell to you. It's slightly different than what's going on here, which might be more akin to the interesting conversation you struck up with the stranger on the bus getting awkward around for third or fourth time them mention how much they like their new jacket, which is both stylish and waterproof. That's not to say it's all one or the other. Fashion magazines have advertising masquerading as editorial content also, I'm sure, but I imagine most people are expecting their being pitched some product most the time while reading the magazine.
- wil421 8y ago
  I tend to agree with you. The other day I was looking for reviews on some boots I was going to buy. Most of the videos I found had the same fake advertisement feel you described. There was probably 4 or 5 videos basically giving a history of the company, why they are so good, and a small bit about the boot. It felt much more like an ad than a boot review. It took some searching to find an amateur YouTuber in the UK giving a review of the boots. He even had 6 months and a year update. It was a low quality production but the content was so much better. This guy even walked in a creek to show they were waterproof while everyone else sat in their bedroom talking.
Simon_says 8y ago
I was curious about the videos in question. This is Jake Pauls': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO2RIEKMSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO2RIEKMSg It's so awful! How is this so popular?
- nkrisc 8y ago
  From the article: > Paul, for example, has acknowledged that the bulk of his fanbase is between 8 and 15 years old. An age range not known for taste.
  - gowld 8y ago
    It's not abouse taste, its about youthful ignorance and trust/gullibility and child-abusing predators who prey on them, and their caregivers (parents but also governments) that fail to educate and protect them. Let's also not forget that the Paul brothers fame was created by the Disney regime.
    - Freak_NL 8y ago
      Should a kid of 8 even be able to watch those video's without violating the terms of agreement Youtube requires users to accept? Or are these video's available on Youtube's kids channel as well?
- CSMastermind 8y ago
  https://youtu.be/fTu8jzVXTi0 https://youtu.be/fTu8jzVXTi0 It's popular among children who like the high energy, intense emotions, and jump cuts. They also mix in base humor while heavily cross promoting among themselves. So their viewers feel like they're part of team or a movement or whatever.
  - orf 8y ago
    That's a very interesting video, thanks for sharing.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
skocznymroczny 8y ago
These 'mystery boxes' thing are super common in the gaming world. There are many websites in which you can bet money to open a mystery box containing a game, or in case of some games a skin for the game's weapons. The websites themselves are very manipulative. First of all, many offer a "test spin", which usually gives you a very good prize just to lure you in. Secondly, they use popular Youtube personalities to perform "box opening" videos, they get e.g. 30 free box openings. What isn't told, is that it's trivial for the mystery box website to boost the winning chance for the youtuber so that people think "wow, it's so easy, I can win that too". Thirdly, when doing the spin animation, they usually show you that the prized possession you were after was just around the corner, you were very close. Just give it a one more spin, you'll surely get it this time!
- gowld 8y ago
  Back in the legacy world of arcades and carnivals, Mark Rober did some nice videos about the analog/physic and electronic tricks of scam games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXBfwgwT1nQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXBfwgwT1nQ It's quite a problem that all these gambling scams are (to more or lesser extent) regulated in geographic jurisdictions, but Internet-bsaed systems bypass all local sovereignty. How long before the governments step up and demand that all Internet businesses get import licenses and traffic must pass through "customs" at each ISP "port of entry" for their goods and services?
- jasonlotito 8y ago
  Even CDPR (the darling of the gaming world) isn't above this. GOG (which is part of CDPR) has done this in the past. Give money, and get a random game.
- T-R 8y ago
  Not just games - toys like Hatchimals and LOL dolls are just loot boxes targeting an even younger demographic, with similar unboxing videos to market them.
- zeusk 8y ago
  It was mostly the mobile games at first, then Valve went ham with the idea in their games and now that's the only original content they release.
Kenji 8y ago
I think that's perfectly fine. People who fall for this are retarded and deserve to be poorer.
losthobbies 8y ago
A youtuber called tmartn got into trouble doing something akin to gambling and lootboxes a few years ago. So scummy considering most of his subscribers were kids.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  I guess if you see Blizzard, EA, etc. making money hand-over-fist then there's a strong temptation to replicate that?
- gizmo385 8y ago
  tmartn's trouble was especially disgusting because he owned the site that we was "advertising" that he had "found".
jdlyga 8y ago
PewDiePie just called them out in his latest video.
porpoisely 8y ago
Other than being youtubers, what's the difference between them and NJTransit promoting DraftKings for months? TV networks and media outlets like thedailybeast also push gambling ads to casinos, vegas, online gambling, etc.
- en4bz 8y ago
  Audience is mostly minors.
- TheAdamist 8y ago
  Casinos, and maybe draft kings are regulated on how much they have to pay out, and actually do pay out. These sites may not bother to pay out, and who knows the odds...
- bliblah 8y ago
  If you haven't seen the videos, one of the prizes that is redeemable in the "box" is a $250 million home in LA, only there is no evidence that this is even in the box, no pictures outside a stock photo off the internet, no odds of winning, nothing. They could easily just have put it there as a joke to trick people. As far as I know draft kings actually works as intended, you bet and win/lose depending on real world results that are verifiable. Here it is a super obfuscated slot machine with no guarantees of anything.
variable11 8y ago
YouTube needs to be regulated like a cable channel or TV station, enough is enough of these scofflaws.
dingo_bat 8y ago
Google doesn't care about users as long as they are earning money off of them.
xg15 8y ago
I find the linked tweets from another Youtuber [1] and a random person [2] quite informative about the mentality that is apparently present in the Youtuber sphere. Reminder: this is about channels with a significant acknowledged underage audience. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1080274399410954240 https://mobile.twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/10802743994109542... [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/protecdaniel/status/1080384613988524033 https://mobile.twitter.com/protecdaniel/status/1080384613988...
pawelk 8y ago
From the TOS of the company website: > These terms are interpreted and are subject to the jurisdiction and the laws of Poland Which is really intriguing, since organizing any form of lottery or chance-based game is so complicated, that virtually nobody who knows anything about the subject would dare to try. When I worked in advertising nobody in their right mind would create a promotional campaign with prizes given away to randomly picked winners, there had to be objective criteria (skill, talent, popular vote etc). E.g. when we made a memo-like browser game, the lawyers said we need to show all the cards for a few seconds, so there's an element of skill (memorization of the board) instead of chance (the cards being randomly distributed). And if my memory serves, finishing the game was required to enter the contest, but to win the prize there was an extra text field where participants had to answer something like "why would you like to win the prize?", and the best answer, picked by a jury, was awarded. There were people playing poker with family and friends raided by police. (I think poker is now considered at leat partially skill based and some laws were fixed since). There were teachers going trough hell when trying to make a simple lottery as a part of school fund raiser event. If they really operate in / from Poland, it may not take long for this to get shut down if the authorities get involved. Edit: found a detailed overview of the regulations in English here: https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-635-6028?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&comp=pluk&bhcp=1 https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-635-6028?transi...
- merlincorey 8y ago
  > There were people playing poker with family and friends raided by police. (I think poker is now considered at leat partially skill based and some laws were fixed since). Only if they take a rake. There is nothing illegal about playing poker for money privately with friends. However, if there is a fee paid to the house, especially in the form of rake for tournaments or hands in ring games, then you are now breaking the law, if you are transacting in USD in the US.
- Ralfp 8y ago
  If they are really a lottery, they are betting it on nobody from Poland taking interest in them, because lotteries in Poland are de-facto state monopoly due to amount of requirements imposed on lottery organizers: Lottery draws are done in presence of commission including members of state's Commission of games and gambling (Komisja gier i zakładów - KGiZ). Commission members are named in document describing game's terms and conditions. Commission records and protocols drawing process, and stores those because lottery participants have unconditional right to request access to them. Possible fines went into millions of PLN - enough to sink small company and piss off larger one. I've been working at advertising agency doing lotteries for certain big home brand. The way we did that was paying 3rd party company with ties to KGiZ for organizing those, because it was crazy to try doing it otherwise.
NelsonMinar 8y ago
This is straight up evil and Google and the shills for the gambling should all be held accountable.
rhacker 8y ago
The television industry has had many years to build out rules/regs and basic standards for content. Is it time to start treating youtube posters as television stations and regulate them similarly?
iheartpotatoes 8y ago
The Paul brothers really give me the creeps. I'm old (50+) and don't understand them. My hipness crapped out around the time of Jackass on MTV, and this feels like the rich grandchild of that moment, except now they are entirely focused on money. Same goes for PewDiePie. Who the hell sits down to actually watch him? I tried watching all three, and clearly I'm not their target. The fame and influence they wield, is it more or less nefarious than using celebs to market pre 00's? It feels more so to me. I finally understand the cultural gap my grandparents must have felt when I played my Atari 2600 all day and they just shook their heads.
- djhworld 8y ago
  > Who the hell sits down to actually watch him? Children
  - quink 8y ago
    PewDiePie skews a bit older than that. https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/pewdiepie-reveals-his-channel-statistics-after-alinity-suggested-all-his-fans-were-9-year-olds-110491 https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/pewdiepie-reveals-his-...
- beatgammit 8y ago
  I'm with you, and I'm not nearly as old as you (low 30s). The YouTubers I follow rarely shill for anything I care about. In fact, I don't subscribe to much at all because I honestly don't want to get a stream of mediocre content. I don't understand Twitch (I only watch gameplay videos to get a sense of the gameplay, not to live vicariously through someone else), and I don't understand those stupid "unboxing" and "playing with toys" videos that my kids like so much. In fact, I go so far as to actively discourage YouTube with my children, instead moving them toward Netflix, which had much better production value and usually includes some education. However, I have acquaintances that love watching streamers, and my wife follows a few live streamers religiously and gets involved in live chat and whatnot. I see that they enjoy that content and I've read literature about it, but I cannot relate.
mxscho 8y ago
Regardless of whether gambling or gambling advertisements are ethically acceptable: A "provably fair" system [1] ensures that no one is scammed and the client can be 100% sure that the odds are not manipulated in any way. However, when examining the "provably fair" system used by this specific site mysterybrand.net, one can see that the commonly used algorithms have deliberately been manipulated in a way such that the actual draws done on the server can be arbitrary without respecting any predeclared odds. E.g., the verification site just checks whether md5($randomClientSeed + $publicServerHash) == md5($randomClientSeed + $publicServerHash), based on things which are all known pre-roll, and which is obviously true, not involving the $secretServerSeed at all. It's a joke. They even link to the URL mentioned above, but their implementation is completely wrong. Still not saying that I am pro/con gambling, but just seeing a website at least implementing the provably fair system in a non-malicious way, it would be a start. [1] https://dicesites.com/provably-fair https://dicesites.com/provably-fair
nichochar 8y ago
This has been an ongoing issue in the world of CSGO for a very long time, and CS is finally slowly beating it. It took a lot of great journalism from Richard Lewis to beat it. If you're curious you can for example check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpwOzfXErs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpwOzfXErs
beezischillin 8y ago
Please change my mind if you believe otherwise but I feel like this is all a consequence of YouTube completely screwing creators over when it comes to copyright and ad-revenue. The site's been going downhill since YouTube's refusal to actually fight for its content creators and decision to run with big name corporations as their preferred content producers. While corporate channels are gaining incredible amounts of promotion, immunity and power, others had their incomes completely gutted. Some people have seen something like this ahead of many others, people like LinusTechTips, who, for years now worked on partnerships with companies to gain relevant sponsors but many others didn't and were hit hard by all this. YouTube even removed their abilities to link their Patreon as part of their videos, if I remember correctly. Realistically speaking, I'm unsure what the real solution to this would be, other than YouTube doing its best to provide its creators a stable source of income.. (And on a small side-note: ads on YouTube itself have become quite dodgy, here in Eastern Europe. I keep seeing video and image ads for shoddy gambling sites, Russian singles sites (not even kidding!) and weird Jesus-cults. I am having very real flashbacks to the early 2000s Warez-internet.)

270 points by smacktoward 8y ago

The linked site seems broken ATM (no certificate being served, page content blank), but the WBM has it: https://web.archive.org/web/20190103122009/https://www.thedailybeast.com/youtubes-biggest-stars-are-pushing-a-shady-polish-gambling-site https://web.archive.org/web/20190103122009/https://www.theda...

umvi 8y ago

I can't tell if this article was the original or if H3H3's video was the original, but H3H3 also covers this - https://youtu.be/3ewyEF3Wd9M https://youtu.be/3ewyEF3Wd9M TL;DW - Youtubers with large young audiences are promoting loot box style gambling. Youtube seems like the wild west. On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life, huge youtubers promoting gambling to children, elsagate, etc. On the light side we have people's videos being flagged for copyright violations over literal sounds of nature, music they produced themselves, or music playing in the background. Also "fair use" doesn't exist on YouTube - a 1 second clip is enough for a company to claim your video apparently. There are still a lot of niche channels I love on YouTube but I would never want to try to make a living producing content on that platform myself... seems too volatile.

vinceguidry 8y ago
I think the Internet has created a world in which the number of steps one needs to take before running headfirst into the Earth's greatest evils is getting shorter by the year. It's just going to get harder and harder to insulate yourself from this stuff. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing.
- tivert 8y ago
  > I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing. How do you think that could be a good thing? Seems like an obviously bad thing to me.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    More awareness of evil means more political will to clean it up.
    - spookthesunset 8y ago
      > More awareness of evil means more political will to clean it up. Maybe, but it seems like people who fall into the echo chamber just vote for the evil doers instead.
bluetidepro 8y ago
I love me some H3H3, and watched this the other day. To me, the craziest part is that YouTube promoted it. To be fair, I'm sure it was an automated system that did it, and not by choice of YouTube but still. Seems like a thing they should have easily been able to quickly correct/fix manually.
- Conlectus 8y ago
  YouTube has gotten flak for being biased in their "Trending" promotions recently, so maybe they've taken more of a hands-off approach.
  - bluetidepro 8y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure it's somewhat of a lose-lose for them. If they do it by hand, people will bitch about them "playing favorites", but if a automated system does it, you have problems like this.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Which is how you get people like me screaming at the platforms: "Stop with this trending nonsense, stop with this "your friends liked" nonsense, stop with this "in case your missed it" nonsense, take your hands off me and just let me mindlessly click and watch whatever videos I feel like watching and react to the tweets I want to react to, I don't need your damn help knowing what my friends are doing or feeling like I need to like something because the platform detected that Jim liked it six hours ago since my last login". For all this talk about FOMO, it's impossible for me, personally, to NOT look at the culpability the platforms have in it by nagging me all the time about what everyone else is doing and be annoyed by it. I know what they're doing, I see it. I don't need your helicopter parenting to know that, twitter. Keep the trolls in line, keep the lights on, otherwise get out of the way.
      - all2 8y ago
        In the absence of deliberate algorithms a site like YT has few things to fall back on: - Sort by time. - Sort by creator/channel. - Sort by creator selected content type (fallible). - Search (a la Google, which sucks on Youtube). - ??? I wonder if these would be sufficient? Maybe something like Reddit/HN is necessary; some human aggregation and interaction. Would a Reddit style interface work well for video? A landing page with trending videos (upvotes, comments, threads, etc.), links out to popular subjects/sub-reddits, and so on. Perhaps with an interface like HN which forces people together in one kind of communication (in threads), generous wait periods for new members, and so on... I suppose that only considers the viewer's use-case. What about monetization? What about creators?
qeternity 8y ago
> On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life Can you explain for those of us out of the loop...
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  I tried googling around for a couple minutes, but only found videos about human trafficking hosted in YouTube. I'm curious, too.
  - dijit 8y ago
    paymoneywubby did a video about it last month. https://youtu.be/hc4HzbD0GLI https://youtu.be/hc4HzbD0GLI
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jhart99 8y ago
  I think he is referring to these sorts of videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5aPc2wlLiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5aPc2wlLiA which are "slice of life" videos taken to their extreme. For an example, here is a slice of life one that isn't so extreme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkE3e7lT_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkE3e7lT_g
  - PopeDotNinja 8y ago
    Could bootstrapping one or more YouTube channels starring trafficking victims be profitable enough to attract organized crime? Could someone who knows a bit about YouTube channel growth & revenue streams crunch some numbers to post here? I assume that "bikini girl" prepended to any video title attract more views than videos of me. "old, chubby bald dude fishing in real life" doesn't seem like a great clickbait title. If there's enough money to be made in "slice of life" videos, I guess it could attract the attention of human traffickers.
  - 8y ago
CSMastermind 8y ago
> On the dark side we have channels bursting with (possibly) human trafficked vietnamese women producing sexual content masquerading as slice-of-life, Wait what?
gowld 8y ago
Why would you assume that woman (singular) is trafficked, and not an entrepenuer? Do you think her whole family was abducted and held hostage?
- umvi 8y ago
  I honestly don't know if the woman in paymoneywubby's video is trafficked or not, but there were a lot of red flags that made me really uncomfortable when combined: - Frequency and quantity of the uploads indicated she was doing these videos more than full-time - No verbal interaction other than an occasional glare at cameraman - Vietnam, not (say) America or Europe I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt, but something makes me deeply uncomfortable about it.
  - docker_up 8y ago
    This is deeply racist. Just because she's Vietnamese and not white, your unconscious bias suggests to you that she's a victim of human trafficking?
    - jki275 8y ago
      No, it's not. Southeast Asian, specifically Filipino, Thai, and Vietnamese women are the most commonly trafficked ethnic group worldwide.
      - docker_up 8y ago
        You're wrong. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worst-countries-for-modern-slavery/277037/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-...
        jki275 8y ago
        That article doesn't address the discussion. First, it's five years old, and second it's talking about something that is somewhat different. I might also note that I lived in southeast Asia for many years. There's a huge amount of trafficking that isn't being reported to the Atlantic website or the US State department there.
colpabar 8y ago
H3H3 is just as guilty of this. They were one of MANY channels advertising a scam "therapy" service called Better Help to viewers with mental health issues. While he did acknowledge it, it was only after being called out in a Pewdiepie video, and he seemed much more upset about getting caught than promoting such a scam of a service.
- fokinsean 8y ago
  What's scammy about Better Help?
  - colpabar 8y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUEnagP69c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUEnagP69c This happened a while ago so I don't remember everything, but I believe the company was like an Uber for therapy, rather than providing therapy directly.
  - dijit 8y ago
    A few months ago Pewdiepie posted a video[0] that roughly took the piss out of Better Help and their practices and pointed out the irony of an online counseling service that claims to be a cheaper alternative to actual therapy, but still lists in their terms of service that you need actual therapy and that what they offer is only supplemental in nature. So basically they're engaging in borderline false advertising targeted at people who are by definition emotionally and psychologically vulnerable and compromised. And the youtube side of it is that a whole host of youtubers promoted this service on their platforms. Not to mention that their terms dictate they can sell your data. Which obviously is unexpected from a“medical” company. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PLgOaVXmGU
    - larkeith 8y ago
      > Not to mention that their terms dictate they can sell your data. Which obviously is unexpected from a“medical” company. That seems like it must be skirting the HIPAA line very closely.
samstave 8y ago
>Youtube seems like the wild west. YT to me is more like Kowloon Walled City - massive and amazing as a monolithic entity, and you can find amazing gems - but when you look closely, its a lawless cess-pool with a confusing and almost evil method of getting around - and things that shouldn't be anywhere near each-other are practically roommates, rather than neighbors. And you should not trust any strangers you come across, no matter what they promise you. Also, its a terrible place for children to be unattended - and is largely ungoverned by those who should be governing it...

bluetidepro 8y ago

[a bit of a tangent rant here] Beyond how despicable it is that these YouTube "stars" are promoting this, it's really interesting to see how these concept of a website even came about. I don't know much about the origins of it, but I'm going to assume they took a play from the modern gaming industry playbook. It was only a matter of time that someone realized modern gaming companies are "geniuses" in their execution of this same thing in their games. It's crazy that these gaming companies are causing such big problems for our youth by all the microtransactions and addiction problems in their triple A title games. I know some countries have done a great job regulated it (Germany, I believe?), but that regulation really needs to make its way to the USA to kill off these greedy parasites. It really is starting to be a black cloud around a lot of the modern gaming industry. I would rather pay double the price of a game (~$60), and have no microtransactions at all, vs these games that charge full price and then put have the content behind a paywall of microtransactions -- cosmetic or not. /rant haha

jdietrich 8y ago
It's kinda Valve's fault. Team Fortress 2 was the first major game in the west to implement loot boxes; the CS:GO skins economy spawned a legion of scummy third-party gambling sites, from which this site is clearly derived. Weirdly, it may also partly be the fault of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/ http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- leppr 8y ago
  Isn't it ironic to blame Valve, when they're pretty much the only ones doing it right ? By restricting microtransactions to cosmetic elements, the thing they play on is one's vanity. Players who are content exploring the gameplay can do so unencumbered. There is no "special club" for players who buy items. They don't beat you more easily in the games. The main focus is still on winning the matches. There is no incentive to buy those cosmetic items except players thinking "I want to look cool". Whatever Valve may do, that's not a vice they are responsible for creating, or that anyone is ever exempt from (we all have to buy clothes). They merely brought it, opt-in, to their games.

vorpalhex 8y ago

YouTube is a website that entirely fulfills the idea that no publicity is bad publicity. Which is a shame, because there's shows like Binging with Babish which are quite nice. edit - remove comment because apparently Logan Paul and Jake Paul are not the same person, they just seem like it.

smcl 8y ago
That was a different Paul brother - Logan Paul - albeit he's an equally awful person.
generalpf 8y ago
The suicide forest incident was Logan Paul, his brother.
FiveSquared25 8y ago
People were saying that for years. We didn’t listen. Now we are all ears. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...

trw 8y ago

That Bryan “Ricegum” Le guy is insultingly ugly. This website should've pixelated his face.

mabbo 8y ago

I'm actually pretty impressed by how clever and insidious the "YouTuber" advertising game is. All these 'personalities' and 'stars' put out whatever content continues to get views- and there's a beautiful survival of the fittest game going on there- and then once they have subscribed viewers they can subtly promote anything at all and be paid for it. My wife watches a bunch of 'cleaning' and 'makeup/style' YouTubers. All I see when I view it are advertisements pretending to be personal videos. She loves it. The ones for kids are especially creepy when you really dig into what's going on. They've convinced people to subscribe to advertisements so they see them as soon as they're posted. That's even better than Facebook convincing everyone to give them all their personal information so it can be 'shared'.

eli 8y ago
I think fashion magazines have been mostly ads with style guides and tips mixed in for a long time -- and those aren't event free to read!
- kbenson 8y ago
  A fashion magazine is sort of like walking into a market or bazaar. Part of the reason for being there is to see all the interesting things people are trying to sell to you. It's slightly different than what's going on here, which might be more akin to the interesting conversation you struck up with the stranger on the bus getting awkward around for third or fourth time them mention how much they like their new jacket, which is both stylish and waterproof. That's not to say it's all one or the other. Fashion magazines have advertising masquerading as editorial content also, I'm sure, but I imagine most people are expecting their being pitched some product most the time while reading the magazine.
wil421 8y ago
I tend to agree with you. The other day I was looking for reviews on some boots I was going to buy. Most of the videos I found had the same fake advertisement feel you described. There was probably 4 or 5 videos basically giving a history of the company, why they are so good, and a small bit about the boot. It felt much more like an ad than a boot review. It took some searching to find an amateur YouTuber in the UK giving a review of the boots. He even had 6 months and a year update. It was a low quality production but the content was so much better. This guy even walked in a creek to show they were waterproof while everyone else sat in their bedroom talking.

Simon_says 8y ago

I was curious about the videos in question. This is Jake Pauls': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO2RIEKMSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wO2RIEKMSg It's so awful! How is this so popular?

nkrisc 8y ago
From the article: > Paul, for example, has acknowledged that the bulk of his fanbase is between 8 and 15 years old. An age range not known for taste.
- gowld 8y ago
  It's not abouse taste, its about youthful ignorance and trust/gullibility and child-abusing predators who prey on them, and their caregivers (parents but also governments) that fail to educate and protect them. Let's also not forget that the Paul brothers fame was created by the Disney regime.
  - Freak_NL 8y ago
    Should a kid of 8 even be able to watch those video's without violating the terms of agreement Youtube requires users to accept? Or are these video's available on Youtube's kids channel as well?
CSMastermind 8y ago
https://youtu.be/fTu8jzVXTi0 https://youtu.be/fTu8jzVXTi0 It's popular among children who like the high energy, intense emotions, and jump cuts. They also mix in base humor while heavily cross promoting among themselves. So their viewers feel like they're part of team or a movement or whatever.
- orf 8y ago
  That's a very interesting video, thanks for sharing.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago

skocznymroczny 8y ago

These 'mystery boxes' thing are super common in the gaming world. There are many websites in which you can bet money to open a mystery box containing a game, or in case of some games a skin for the game's weapons. The websites themselves are very manipulative. First of all, many offer a "test spin", which usually gives you a very good prize just to lure you in. Secondly, they use popular Youtube personalities to perform "box opening" videos, they get e.g. 30 free box openings. What isn't told, is that it's trivial for the mystery box website to boost the winning chance for the youtuber so that people think "wow, it's so easy, I can win that too". Thirdly, when doing the spin animation, they usually show you that the prized possession you were after was just around the corner, you were very close. Just give it a one more spin, you'll surely get it this time!

gowld 8y ago
Back in the legacy world of arcades and carnivals, Mark Rober did some nice videos about the analog/physic and electronic tricks of scam games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXBfwgwT1nQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXBfwgwT1nQ It's quite a problem that all these gambling scams are (to more or lesser extent) regulated in geographic jurisdictions, but Internet-bsaed systems bypass all local sovereignty. How long before the governments step up and demand that all Internet businesses get import licenses and traffic must pass through "customs" at each ISP "port of entry" for their goods and services?
jasonlotito 8y ago
Even CDPR (the darling of the gaming world) isn't above this. GOG (which is part of CDPR) has done this in the past. Give money, and get a random game.
T-R 8y ago
Not just games - toys like Hatchimals and LOL dolls are just loot boxes targeting an even younger demographic, with similar unboxing videos to market them.
zeusk 8y ago
It was mostly the mobile games at first, then Valve went ham with the idea in their games and now that's the only original content they release.

Kenji 8y ago

I think that's perfectly fine. People who fall for this are retarded and deserve to be poorer.

losthobbies 8y ago

A youtuber called tmartn got into trouble doing something akin to gambling and lootboxes a few years ago. So scummy considering most of his subscribers were kids.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
I guess if you see Blizzard, EA, etc. making money hand-over-fist then there's a strong temptation to replicate that?
gizmo385 8y ago
tmartn's trouble was especially disgusting because he owned the site that we was "advertising" that he had "found".

jdlyga 8y ago

PewDiePie just called them out in his latest video.

porpoisely 8y ago

Other than being youtubers, what's the difference between them and NJTransit promoting DraftKings for months? TV networks and media outlets like thedailybeast also push gambling ads to casinos, vegas, online gambling, etc.

en4bz 8y ago
Audience is mostly minors.
TheAdamist 8y ago
Casinos, and maybe draft kings are regulated on how much they have to pay out, and actually do pay out. These sites may not bother to pay out, and who knows the odds...
bliblah 8y ago
If you haven't seen the videos, one of the prizes that is redeemable in the "box" is a $250 million home in LA, only there is no evidence that this is even in the box, no pictures outside a stock photo off the internet, no odds of winning, nothing. They could easily just have put it there as a joke to trick people. As far as I know draft kings actually works as intended, you bet and win/lose depending on real world results that are verifiable. Here it is a super obfuscated slot machine with no guarantees of anything.

variable11 8y ago

YouTube needs to be regulated like a cable channel or TV station, enough is enough of these scofflaws.

dingo_bat 8y ago

Google doesn't care about users as long as they are earning money off of them.

xg15 8y ago

I find the linked tweets from another Youtuber [1] and a random person [2] quite informative about the mentality that is apparently present in the Youtuber sphere. Reminder: this is about channels with a significant acknowledged underage audience. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1080274399410954240 https://mobile.twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/10802743994109542... [2] https://mobile.twitter.com/protecdaniel/status/1080384613988524033 https://mobile.twitter.com/protecdaniel/status/1080384613988...

pawelk 8y ago

From the TOS of the company website: > These terms are interpreted and are subject to the jurisdiction and the laws of Poland Which is really intriguing, since organizing any form of lottery or chance-based game is so complicated, that virtually nobody who knows anything about the subject would dare to try. When I worked in advertising nobody in their right mind would create a promotional campaign with prizes given away to randomly picked winners, there had to be objective criteria (skill, talent, popular vote etc). E.g. when we made a memo-like browser game, the lawyers said we need to show all the cards for a few seconds, so there's an element of skill (memorization of the board) instead of chance (the cards being randomly distributed). And if my memory serves, finishing the game was required to enter the contest, but to win the prize there was an extra text field where participants had to answer something like "why would you like to win the prize?", and the best answer, picked by a jury, was awarded. There were people playing poker with family and friends raided by police. (I think poker is now considered at leat partially skill based and some laws were fixed since). There were teachers going trough hell when trying to make a simple lottery as a part of school fund raiser event. If they really operate in / from Poland, it may not take long for this to get shut down if the authorities get involved. Edit: found a detailed overview of the regulations in English here: https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-635-6028?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&comp=pluk&bhcp=1 https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-635-6028?transi...

merlincorey 8y ago
> There were people playing poker with family and friends raided by police. (I think poker is now considered at leat partially skill based and some laws were fixed since). Only if they take a rake. There is nothing illegal about playing poker for money privately with friends. However, if there is a fee paid to the house, especially in the form of rake for tournaments or hands in ring games, then you are now breaking the law, if you are transacting in USD in the US.
Ralfp 8y ago
If they are really a lottery, they are betting it on nobody from Poland taking interest in them, because lotteries in Poland are de-facto state monopoly due to amount of requirements imposed on lottery organizers: Lottery draws are done in presence of commission including members of state's Commission of games and gambling (Komisja gier i zakładów - KGiZ). Commission members are named in document describing game's terms and conditions. Commission records and protocols drawing process, and stores those because lottery participants have unconditional right to request access to them. Possible fines went into millions of PLN - enough to sink small company and piss off larger one. I've been working at advertising agency doing lotteries for certain big home brand. The way we did that was paying 3rd party company with ties to KGiZ for organizing those, because it was crazy to try doing it otherwise.

NelsonMinar 8y ago

This is straight up evil and Google and the shills for the gambling should all be held accountable.

rhacker 8y ago

The television industry has had many years to build out rules/regs and basic standards for content. Is it time to start treating youtube posters as television stations and regulate them similarly?

iheartpotatoes 8y ago

The Paul brothers really give me the creeps. I'm old (50+) and don't understand them. My hipness crapped out around the time of Jackass on MTV, and this feels like the rich grandchild of that moment, except now they are entirely focused on money. Same goes for PewDiePie. Who the hell sits down to actually watch him? I tried watching all three, and clearly I'm not their target. The fame and influence they wield, is it more or less nefarious than using celebs to market pre 00's? It feels more so to me. I finally understand the cultural gap my grandparents must have felt when I played my Atari 2600 all day and they just shook their heads.

djhworld 8y ago
> Who the hell sits down to actually watch him? Children
- quink 8y ago
  PewDiePie skews a bit older than that. https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/pewdiepie-reveals-his-channel-statistics-after-alinity-suggested-all-his-fans-were-9-year-olds-110491 https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/pewdiepie-reveals-his-...
beatgammit 8y ago
I'm with you, and I'm not nearly as old as you (low 30s). The YouTubers I follow rarely shill for anything I care about. In fact, I don't subscribe to much at all because I honestly don't want to get a stream of mediocre content. I don't understand Twitch (I only watch gameplay videos to get a sense of the gameplay, not to live vicariously through someone else), and I don't understand those stupid "unboxing" and "playing with toys" videos that my kids like so much. In fact, I go so far as to actively discourage YouTube with my children, instead moving them toward Netflix, which had much better production value and usually includes some education. However, I have acquaintances that love watching streamers, and my wife follows a few live streamers religiously and gets involved in live chat and whatnot. I see that they enjoy that content and I've read literature about it, but I cannot relate.

mxscho 8y ago

Regardless of whether gambling or gambling advertisements are ethically acceptable: A "provably fair" system [1] ensures that no one is scammed and the client can be 100% sure that the odds are not manipulated in any way. However, when examining the "provably fair" system used by this specific site mysterybrand.net, one can see that the commonly used algorithms have deliberately been manipulated in a way such that the actual draws done on the server can be arbitrary without respecting any predeclared odds. E.g., the verification site just checks whether md5($randomClientSeed + $publicServerHash) == md5($randomClientSeed + $publicServerHash), based on things which are all known pre-roll, and which is obviously true, not involving the $secretServerSeed at all. It's a joke. They even link to the URL mentioned above, but their implementation is completely wrong. Still not saying that I am pro/con gambling, but just seeing a website at least implementing the provably fair system in a non-malicious way, it would be a start. [1] https://dicesites.com/provably-fair https://dicesites.com/provably-fair

nichochar 8y ago

This has been an ongoing issue in the world of CSGO for a very long time, and CS is finally slowly beating it. It took a lot of great journalism from Richard Lewis to beat it. If you're curious you can for example check out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpwOzfXErs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFpwOzfXErs

beezischillin 8y ago

Please change my mind if you believe otherwise but I feel like this is all a consequence of YouTube completely screwing creators over when it comes to copyright and ad-revenue. The site's been going downhill since YouTube's refusal to actually fight for its content creators and decision to run with big name corporations as their preferred content producers. While corporate channels are gaining incredible amounts of promotion, immunity and power, others had their incomes completely gutted. Some people have seen something like this ahead of many others, people like LinusTechTips, who, for years now worked on partnerships with companies to gain relevant sponsors but many others didn't and were hit hard by all this. YouTube even removed their abilities to link their Patreon as part of their videos, if I remember correctly. Realistically speaking, I'm unsure what the real solution to this would be, other than YouTube doing its best to provide its creators a stable source of income.. (And on a small side-note: ads on YouTube itself have become quite dodgy, here in Eastern Europe. I keep seeing video and image ads for shoddy gambling sites, Russian singles sites (not even kidding!) and weird Jesus-cults. I am having very real flashbacks to the early 2000s Warez-internet.)