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Comment by freedomben | Hacker News Reader

It really is remarkable how credulous kids are for these things, especially for some reason Mr. Beast. Good, but painful, lesson for them

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It's not just kids. MrBeast had me convinced he has a perfectly good business model making more money than he gives away without having to pull shady things. And with me plenty of reasonable adults judging from his interactions with public figures.

I think it's awesome that you can admit that kind of thing. You make the world a little better with that.

Do you say his giveaways are fake?

I mean, it was obvious to me they couldn’t have been able to pull $10k of money per video at the start. Maybe now, with 400M subscribers that would work just fine.

Kids? how many people try and pay IRS debt with Apple Gift Cards? How many people just dumbly trust sales people? Its best they learn at this early age rather than later in life when they grifted for $1000s.

Cut out the middle man. Scam you own kids to teach them a lesson…

"I cheat my boys every chance I get. I want to make 'em sharp."

- William Rockefeller Sr.

> remarkable how credulous kids are for these things

Is it though? We're talking about kids whose brains aren't fully developed yet. IMO there's a certain genius in marketing to kids, as they are far more likely to buy wholesale into what you're selling. MrBeast probably does the best job but if you look through kids Youtube there are some really shady folks out there that just make videos designed to suck kids in, and just based off their view counts you can tell they are making disgusting amounts of money off AdSense.

To be fair, it's been like this forever.

"not a flying toy"

Not really. Algorithmic pushes have made it look like if it's popular, it's credible. This credibility is entirely engineered. Same reason why kids die from TikTok challenges.

The way this is written makes it sound like you think there's an algorithm saying "if bad person: then boost".

The credibility is ranking. The ranking is a function of engagement. The engagement is a function of human nature. Things delightful, shocking, or unusual usually strike that chord. Sprinkle capitalism into the mix and people become professionally delightful, shocking, or unusual.

I don't think the ranking algorithms are the problem here.

One could argue though, that the idea of abusing human brains weaknesses like "engagement" is the problem here, and a ranking algorithm is just the implementation du jour of the basic evil concept.

> The way this is written makes it sound like you think there's an algorithm saying "if bad person: then boost".

Not so directly, but that's the effective result.

You're blowing right past the question of whether the result of successful dark patterns is legitimate engagement. It's a computer. It's got nothing better to do than run a better algorithm to avoid that outcome.

I didn’t read it that way. Algorithms select for optimizing engagement. People whose brains have not fully developed are incapable of reliably distinguishing fiction presented as fact vs reality, especially when there is intentional deception. Combine those and you get engaging content that can influence a portion of the population with limited defense mechanisms against it.

This is also why minors can’t sign contracts, why broadcasts television used to only show more mature content after prime time, and all of the other ways children have historically been protected.

This isn’t about capitalism among equal parties.

The thing about grifters, scammers and con artists is that they’re professionals.

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