Philip Morris suspends social campaign after Reuters exposes young 'influencers' | Hacker News Reader

Philip Morris suspends social campaign after Reuters exposes young 'influencers'

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111 pointspetethomas40 comments

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.

> 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.

This is the same company that puts cigarette ads on billboards next to schools in third world countries. I would take any suggestion that they want to "reduce youth smoking" with a big heaping spoon of salt.

IQOS is crap, it failed from the start and this is just a face-saving act.

If anyone is interested, it could never have had enough battery for a decent puff.

A half-hearted attempt at beating ecigs. It could not have succeded.

Not enough for one puff? Why not? Batteries can hold a substantial amount of energy in them. It seems you are being hyperbolic; what I'm seeing is that they run for 5-6 minutes on a full battery, which is substantially more than one puff.

Believe me, I've tried it. Or don't and try it yourself, but smoke a couple years at least before that, to really feel the edge.

You just can't pack enough battery and a heater in the same form factor to beat combustion energy output, even if you cut the "cig" length in two as they did.

edit: besides, their heater design sucks.

You're wrong, the smoking pen holds about 5-6 mins pers cigarette (Heets), and the device holds around 20 or more pen recharges.

I've been smoking it since March 2017. I'm on my 2nd device. I've been smoking regular cigarettes since 2010 before IQOS.

No I'm not.

It's just depends on a person's smoking style.

It was not delivering a satisfactory puff for me when it still had a charge, then just fell flat because the dimunitive battery couldn't take more.

I also never achieved anywhere close to 20 recharges of the pen. More like 7-9.

This was not acceptable, especially as the tobacco itself was pipe-grade, much better than the usual nitro paper one finds in cigarettes.

In fact I extracted all the unused tobacco and smoked it in my old pipes.

After that, I'm mixing my own ecig juice and that's much healthier and nicotine doses are much more controllable.

Also: to hell with Philip Morris.

A device that recharges the pen only 7-9 times is broken and can be changed under warranty for no charge. Either that, or your device was a replica, seriously.

I highly doubt someone's smoking style affects the battery power of the smoking pen, because, if you smoke from it like a train engine, it's just got nothing to burn anymore and shuts off - like a normal cigarette. There's nothing related to the battery itself.

Go on youtube and search for juul videos and look at how many of these videos are essentially paid advertising targeted at children.

A lot of videos also look like promo videos for people selling counterfeit juul products.

“conviction to achieve a smoke-free world through socially responsible practices.”...? Why do they even do press? I'm honestly confused by the drug dealer saying they are trying to help the problem

Because they are feeling the heat brought on by many governments and legislative bodies worldwide, and a huge societal shift towards zero tolerance with regards to smoking.

Big tobacco has two ways forward, and they are investing heavily in both.

One, focus the sales of tobacco on developing nations, and get them hooked on tobacco to the point of saturation. Those nations will follow the developed nations where smoking is being phased out of society, so they want to increase their presence there now when opposition is minimal in order to reap the profits of that investment for decades to come.

Two, migrate from tobacco to e-cigarettes in the developed nations that are trying to prevent uptake of smoking by children, whilst keeping the existing body of addicts hooked to tobacco for as long as possible. Pretending to care is part of that strategy, and makes them look like responsible actors.

For those of you who didn't read, the article states:

"The company’s internal “marketing standards” prohibit it from promoting tobacco products with youth-oriented celebrities or “models who are or appear to be under the age of 25.”

So the age limit in discussion is self imposed by the company, which is 25. The 'young influencer' mentioned is 21 years old.

I don't see this as anything above a journalistic sensationalism.

Sure, but the article also states:

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month decided it would allow sales of the IQOS device in the United States after a two-year review process in which Philip Morris repeatedly assured the regulator that it would warn young people away from the product."

I'm sure Phillip Morris made the FDA well aware of their "self-imposed" age limit when pushing for FDA approval. I doubt Phillip Morris introduced this age limit because they suddenly found their moral compass or started to hate making money. I'm sure they use it to get regulators off their back, so this definitely isn't a good look for them.

She was 21 years old. Not 16. Not 17. Not 18. Not 19. Not even 20. But, 21 years old.

Twenty-one.

If they felt that 21 was ok, they could have made that their limit. The point is that they used the 25 age limit to push through legislation and then. Immediately broke it when it came time to push the product.

Any paid influencers promoting the product also must disclose “any relationships between you and entities that create labeling for, advertise, market, and/or promote the products, on your behalf, or at your direction.”

It's a pity that social networks don't require this as part of their TOS. There are a number of high profile accounts on Twitter, for example, that seem to leverage their follower counts and blue checkmarks to promote propaganda for the highest bidder (and they have multiple admins on supposed verified individual accounts, churning out said propaganda 24x7).

There are creative ways to hide the payments, such as using books authored by the influencers, but that's another discussion.

I wonder if these influencers are coming from the Russian troll farms that were trying to spread propaganda during US elections. I would be very surprised if they kept the same head count.

Sureee...

Great synergies here with the Philip Morris of tech.

Unbelievable. In 2019 doing that kind of things, it's pure evil.

Wouldn't it be pure evil in any year?

What qualifies this as evil?

Must be children.

IDK...Is it just me or do I give the individual adult more credit then, it would seem, most others do?

Russian troll farms...influencers..BFuckingD. People are responsible for their behavior, and just because some good looking tool on Social does this or votes for that sure doesn't mean you're absolved from responsibility for choosing to follow or not.

Sure...kids need to ABSOLUTELY be protected and the punishments to those who attempt to lead them astray should be as deep as any we have for any criminal.

But draconian speech suppression aimed at adult-to-adult communications? No thanks.

I just don't see how that eventually leads to anywhere I would want to live.

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