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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

In case the title might lead to you expect he's arguing for the rules for social media influencers to be loosened to match those of movies and TV and radio, it is actually the opposite. He argues that those other media should also have the stricter disclosure requirements that current only apply to social media.

The video is fairly long (about 30 minutes), but goes into a lot of the history of advertising (explicit, product placements, paid endorsements, etc) in radio, TV, and movies in order to make a thorough case.

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Imagine what would happen if this became a thing for TV and movies. Whenever Iron Man would pull up to the Avengers head quarters, you'd get a message "This scene is sponsored by Audi AG". Every war movie would have a "Vehicles and props kindly provided by the US Armed Forces".

And those are just the obvious ones. It would be super funny if they'd have to do it retroactively.

> Every war movie would have a "Vehicles and props kindly provided by the US Armed Forces".

There's a whole bunch of war movies that are absolutely NOT approved by the US DoD, because they show things in an unfavorable light. Generally this means no access to actual equipment like M1 tanks or 'real' aircraft, which must be substituted using somebody else's b-roll, or CGI.

It is generally pretty easy to tell the difference between movies that were filmed with DoD filming office cooperation (Battleship), and ones that might show something about the military in an unflattering or unprofessional light (Three Kings).

One very famous example is Apocalypse Now, the helicopter scene and a lot of the rest of it was filmed in the Philippines, after making a large payment to their military for use of the Hueys.

I watched “Kelly’s Heroes” (1970) for the first time last weekend. Turns out the film was made in Yugoslavia (Croatia today) because the Yugoslav army still used WWII-era Sherman tanks, which were part of the plot so could be cheaply accessed.

(There were also some tax or funding reasons I believe.)

(Side note - holds up well for a 50 year old movie; and one of the best Donald Sutherland performances, in the same year he did MASH.)

It would hopefully reduce the value of those ads, so it may turn at least a few away. That would be a great thing!

In some ways this was the case in Germany (and I'm sure other countries as well) until a few years ago. "Product placement", i.e. making sponsored content an integral part of a movie or article (as opposed to interrupting the media with ads or commercials) was illegal.

I believe at some time in the recent years, the rule got softened, so today, you're only required to show a rather useless warning before the movie. I have no idea why this was done, but I suspect studio pressure playing a role. Something like, the latest Bond movie will have sponsored content whether German government wants it or not, so the only choice is between allowing it or banning major blockbusters and pissing off a large part of the population.

I would like to know which movies had to be edited to please US Armed Forces.

It's more along the lines - the US military only helped films if the story was good to the military. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-entertainment_complex

I'm not aware of exactly what you ask for, probably because the military is that good at ensuring nothing bad would be filmed.

Sounds like a disaster that would be completely unnecessary.

They'd just tack it on the credits at the end.

They already do, the video actually shows that. The video is arguing that they should have to do it the way social media "influencers" have to, either while the product is on screen, or clearly up font at the beginning (the way TV ratings are shown)

In BOTH the UK and US contexts, too! Pretty comprehensive

I get what he's trying to say but the fact is that the two mediums are different.

I know when I watch a TV show, large sums of money went into making the show I'm watching due to the history of television. Writers, actors, set builders, etc. were all paid during the production of a TV show and I know commercials and product placements paid for all of it.

When I watch something on YouTube, my first inkling is to think I'm watching some bloke with a webcam making a video in his basement. The history of YouTube causes me to think that the person on YouTube operates all by themselves just for the fun of it. While I know that that's not the case anymore the historic perception is still there, that's what the rules are meant to protect general public against.

YouTube creates a different kind of relationship between viewer and content creator, one that's particularly intimate and consequently persuasive.

This argument would be valid if not for the rise of reality TV. There's a while genre of shows made to seem "unscripted" when in reality they're almost entirely artificial. Something like pawn stars is a great example of this[1]. Viewers are led to believe that it's actually organic content, and more naive viewers could easily fall for this falsehood.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z31G3Ct98EM

I thought about this as well but reality TV shows are still enough of a spectacle that it's clear that big money is involved.

Survivor placed the contestants on an island competing in elaborate challenges with camera's everywhere for a million dollar prize.

The Bachelor featured a wealthy suitor/suitress and a dozen attractive people of the opposite sex dressed in ridiculously expensive clothing again with camera's everywhere doing extravagant things.

Anyone can end up on YouTube, only certain people can end up on TV and viewers always have this in the back of their minds.

On the contrary, I think that TV paid product placements are often way more subtle. On social media and YouTube it's really in your face full on ads.

> YouTube creates a different kind of relationship between viewer and content creator, one that's particularly intimate and consequently persuasive.

It may, but should that relationship be enforced? Letting well-backed productions get away with not disclosing while the less well-backed have extra rules they have to follow is just favoring incumbents. It's similar to the discussion surrounding "real journalism" and bloggers/youtubers.

"You have to declare that" Excuse me for my ignorance but why is this important? I usually assume any review from someone I don't know personally is potentially sponsored, so I don't really care if they declare it or not. If everyone were taught to make that assumption this wouldn't be an issue.

The way I see it, if people listen to influencer bullshit, they're going to get sold on shitty products and that's their problem. I don't listen to influencers, I listen to friends and coworkers who can give me an honest review that I trust.

Please watch the video before arguing about something that he clearly explained.

Please also show how the parent might misunderstanding the article instead of just telling them off.

It’s against the rules here to accuse people of not reading the article (watching the video in this case.)

I watched the video. Not sure why there's an assumption that I didn't, and I don't think my question is answered.

Because it's clearly explained in the video that your assumptions about videos from influencers you watch are not common.

You assume that your friends aren't being paid off by advertisers? They aren't required to tell you

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