deceptive reviews and shoddy advertisement practices being cracked down on in youtube re Machinima/xbox 1

[Quincy15]

My point is that FCC is overreacting about these things.

 

The UK Advertising Standards Authority must be overreacting too in your view. They have the same views on Youtube sponsored videos

[Bouzoo]

I'll be honest here, people are stating their opinions and many are attacking them to "Shut up", "It's free content", "If you don't like unsubscribe", "Let's see you try and do it", etc., and I disagree. Why not? Linus said many times (in some form) it's important what the community thinks, after all w/o them there would be no LMG. It's a way of saying the LMG what they could fix or focus on when they didn't noticed it themselves. People have that right and this subforum is called General discussion.

However, the way that some people are stating their opinions:

What matters is is that he is selling reviews and getting paid. 

But here's my issue, you're not the same person you were 8 years ago, today you only sell out.

Before making such "strong" statements, let's try to get some proof. Things like "It's obvious", "He has more Nvidia and Intel videos than AMD" are no proof. It goes w/o saying how quoted statements sound like personal attacks. The 1st (original) post had few good arguments and questions for some people and Linus answered most of them, as well as few more in other posts.

 

somehow however you've fallen so low to the point that a lot of viewers have even started bashing the WAN show as a huge ad.

Care to explain that the first part? If nothing else, Linus (and LMG) are better than ever. Well yes, their account was hit by the new office but I didn't mean that. WAN show as a huge ad? They are taking new info from forum and then they discuss it. How are people seeing that as an add? They cover their sponsors but that takes 1-2 min out of ~1 hour and 30 min and they are bashing many things there for that matter. It's also mostly about things that were announced/are to be produced.

 

I never thought you would be so defensive about this whole thing Linus, your last comment doesn't help the situation either. It's basically saying to me "Don't like advertisements? Get out"

I'll play the devil's advocate here. When you say to someone: "today you only sell out." (with other things in that post), not sure what kind of a response you were expecting. 

 

Because let's use are heads for a second. You get approached by Nvidia or intel and given a product to keep. All they ask for is you to make a video about said product and maybe you'll get more in the future. They don't say you HAVE to give it a good review. But what would your mind say? Wow I just got this new top of the line card from these guys. I'd love to get more stuff from them! Maybe I should go a little easy on them when I review this as I don't think they'd like it if I slam the product. They might not give me another in the future if I totally rip this one. See where this goes??? While they don't say how you need to review the product the fact you get it for free does have an effect on your mind set. It's human nature and not some shady practice. With that being said though yes it can turn shady because the company knows that they can use free products to get positive reviews.

It's called greed and some work that way I'm sure, but I haven't noticed that here. Not all reviews they did were perfect it's true, but I don't think it's how they work. I'm sure you can notice that in almost 2000 videos.

[LogicalDrm]

The UK Advertising Standards Authority must be overreacting too in your view. They have the same views on Youtube sponsored videos

Sponsored and paid videos are different things. LTT always uses sponsor on videos that is something else than subject in question. Exception being event coverage where they are really straight about the whole trip being sponsored and really overacting the things while on sponsors booth. <- That is called media reading skill. Imo it should be taught in schools since this whole thread seems to forgot about it.

Sponsored video = video which is made with money gotten from sponsor (indicated by "this video was sponsored by").

Paid video = Video made to promote product/brand. These are really straight and if you can't spot them...

Apparently many think there is third group:

Shady sponsor video = Video comparison made between two major brands where one has paid maker to do comparison to their advantage. Or Video that purely promotes something but it isn't said to be sponsored by something.

Yes, I think every department which is for controlling advertising money is overreacting because of tech review videos. I mean c'mon! There isn't so big moneys flying around that it should be issue. More of issue is Google grabbing payload from content creators because they can't control every ad creator uses.

[Quincy15]

Sponsored and paid videos are different things. LTT always uses sponsor on videos that is something else than subject in question. Exception being event coverage where they are really straight about the whole trip being sponsored and really overacting the things while on sponsors booth. <- That is called media reading skill. Imo it should be taught in schools since this whole thread seems to forgot about it.

Sponsored video = video which is made with money gotten from sponsor (indicated by "this video was sponsored by").

Paid video = Video made to promote product/brand. These are really straight and if you can't spot them...

Apparently many think there is third group:

Shady sponsor video = Video comparison made between two major brands where one has paid maker to do comparison to their advantage. Or Video that purely promotes something but it isn't said to be sponsored by something.

Yes, I think every department which is for controlling advertising money is overreacting because of tech review videos. I mean c'mon! There isn't so big moneys flying around that it should be issue. More of issue is Google grabbing payload from content creators because they can't control every ad creator uses.

 

 

You should listen to TotalBiscuit's latest video on the issue. Its what the law says in America and the UK not what you think it says.

 

The video is mostly concerned with Games and the Media but everything is equally true of Tech Reviewers and the media

 

[ckarpysz]

This thread is so dumb. 

[othertomperson]

 

This point of this video is that it highlights what level of disclosure is not only best for your audience but actually legally acceptable in both the UK and the US. Given Google's status as a US company what the FCC decide is necessary absolutely is relevant and certainly not "dumb" to point out like some people are inexplicably saying.

 

As it happens I just got around to watching the Best Buy video and not once does Linus actually explicitly say that he received money for the video. Not once. I'm assuming he did because he does talk about Best Buy a lot but he falls short of saying explicitly that it was sponsored content. An assumption. As such that video is actually breaking the legal guidelines you are referring to.

 

@LinusTech it's not a question of trusting you or your judgement, it's a question of what level of disclosure is legally required.

[SkilledRebuilds]

This thread is so dumb. 

Yep, arrived and came to the conclusion....skimming through 10 pages,....... "Is this what people are getting concerned with" enough to make a discussion on it..

Just not my Cup'O'T-hread.

[LinusTech]

I never thought you would be so defensive about this whole thing Linus, your last comment doesn't help the situation either. It's basically saying to me "Don't like advertisements? Get out"

 

Here's the thing though, I don't want to get out, I like your channel and would like it to remain interesting but it's being derailed into a direction some viewers don't want to see it go down.

 

I'll point it out again here since you don't seem to care what I say on Twitter. Your viewers have grown to expect more from you than silly product placement disguised as a review, I get it don't worry, everyone needs to put food on the table somehow however you've fallen so low to the point that a lot of viewers have even started bashing the WAN show as a huge ad.

 

 

 

 

This one could have been really helpful but it isn't.

 

 

My voice has been heard. Instead of putting up a defensive barrier and labeling these kinds of comments as complaints made by illiterate children I hope you consider the opinions of all your viewers not just the blindly loyal.

 

There are a lot of posts here that could merit a reply, but this one points out specific (and recent) videos so I want to understand it a little better.

 

What is this list?

 

Compute Stick is not a review, nor was it paid for by Intel. We got our sample so late (we requested it months before this video) that we didn't feel like a review had any value, so we tried something a little different.

 

The RAM showcase is straight up "I thought it was cool". Neither Gigabyte, nor I'M paid for that spot, and in fact I had to send the Brix back after the video was done. We still have the RAM, but we aren't using it for anything. It just sits on a box on the shelf. Hardly motivated by my desire to have 16GB SODIMMs.

 

I super don't understand the WAN show link. Is the suggestion that Tyler paid to be on as a guest or something? 

 

The laptop one was blatantly sponsored by Best Buy. You can disagree with my choices, but that's a whole other discussion. They certainly had nothing to do with sponsorship from the laptop makers. HP has never spent a dollar with us, Lenovo did a sponsored post on the WAN show one time (hardly a huge sponsor) and Microsoft has never done anything with us. There's three of the four. MSI has done some marketing with us, but it had no impact on their laptop being selected.

 

The Acer monitor video (the only review in your list by the way) was not sponsored by Acer and in fact Acer has never spent any marketing dollars with us. I did keep the monitor and I plan to put it on my desk at the new office once I set it up. There are a lot of ways that people are finding to interpret stuff like that, so I'll help you skip right to what's actually going on - I really like the monitor (as I said in my review) so I'd like to use it. 

 

It's like people think there are SO MANY back room meetings with cigar smoke hanging in the air or whatever, when in fact the truth is much, much simpler..

[othertomperson]

It's like people think there are SO MANY back room meetings with cigar smoke hanging in the air or whatever, when in fact the truth is much, much simpler..

 

No, that's not the point at all. The issue is that a lot of YouTubers have, through naïveté as much as anything, blurred the distinction between what is content and what is advertising and the FCC have as a result produced explicit guidelines on how disclosure should be handled. TotalBiscuit's video (embedded above) talks about this in detail. It's not something that is done out of malice, but it doesn't matter.

[Quincy15]

No, that's not the point at all. The issue is that a lot of YouTubers have, through naïveté as much as anything, blurred the distinction between what is content and what is advertising and the FCC have as a result produced explicit guidelines on how disclosure should be handled. TotalBiscuit's video (embedded above) talks about this in detail. It's not something that is done out of malice, but it doesn't matter.

I completely agree with you.

I never thought Linus was trying to withhold sponsorship details but according to the total biscuit video perhaps LLT arnt being as clear as he needed to be. The best buy video never explicitly says that it's sponsored and according to Amercian and UK law it needs to. Ps Canada must have similar rules

[ckarpysz]

The best buy video never explicitly says that it's sponsored and according to Amercian and UK law it needs to. Ps Canada must have similar rules

 

That's insanity. 

 

Linus makes it clear what is sponsored, what is paid for and what was provided by a company. If you are unable to recognize the difference between a review, a product spotlight or a sponsored video then this is a fault that is your own.

 

The stupidity literally hurts my brain.

[Quincy15]

That's insanity. 

 

Linus makes it clear what is sponsored, what is paid for and what was provided by a company. If you are unable to recognize the difference between a review, a product spotlight or a sponsored video is a fault that is your own.

 

The stupidity literally hurts my brain.

Watch the total biscuit video. It's not me who saying it its the FCC. It must be explicit that it's paid content it was not

[Arty]

Watch the total biscuit video. It's not me who saying it its the FCC. It must be explicit that it's paid content it was not

Yea and when did the us government every obey the law? 

[Quincy15]

Yea and when did the us government every obey the law?

This has to be the silliest post of the thread. You can't pick and choose what laws you follow as a private citizen or business.

[Arty]

. You can't pick and choose what laws you follow as a private citizen or business.

But the Government can?

[Quincy15]

But the Government can?

Maybe, but returning to the point of the thread, Linus and the channel arnt the government.

Does he want an FCC investigation ? he perhaps needs to seek legal advice based on the new FCC rules that the video outlines and take appropriate action.

I am not a solicitor but not following these rules might lead to problems in the future

[LogicalDrm]

You should listen to TotalBiscuit's latest video on the issue. Its what the law says in America and the UK not what you think it says.

 

The video is mostly concerned with Games and the Media but everything is equally true of Tech Reviewers and the media

No, that's not the point at all. The issue is that a lot of YouTubers have, through naïveté as much as anything, blurred the distinction between what is content and what is advertising and the FCC have as a result produced explicit guidelines on how disclosure should be handled. TotalBiscuit's video (embedded above) talks about this in detail. It's not something that is done out of malice, but it doesn't matter.

OK, now after watching video and somewhat getting what it was about, I think you guys have missed something by a mile (UK joke, ha ha). TB video is about how content creator should tell audience that video is sponsored or how they have received items in question. Please link me example of LTT video where they haven't done so. Every video has is either as part of pre-intro or right after intro. That was all that TB was about, or big part of it.

Now, every game reviewer keeps games they review. Why would they return anything? So why the hell it is so big deal when tech reviewer keeps the stuff they have reviewed? If they would sell that it would be bigger thing.

FCC (and the UK one?) are worried that consumer doesn't get info about how product in question was acquired. Thats about all I could digest from TB video. They don't care shit if reviewer keeps the stuff they review.

[ckarpysz]

Watch the total biscuit video. It's not me who saying it its the FCC. It must be explicit that it's paid content it was not

 

I think you mean the FTC. I also think you are confusing law with guidelines. 

 

I also don't think you understand the issue, because he does disclose paid advertisement (lynda, squarespace), how he received review product (paid, provided by) or who provided items for other non review videos. 

 

Everyone needs to take a deep breath. Life isn't black and white and you can't depend on everyone to help you out with that. Even with law - companies will skirt around it without breaking it to deceive you. I think there is a different underlying issue here which has nothing to do with disclosure. I'm more concerned with the internet outrage on display than the fact that a few videos might have slightly blurred lines that if you have any ounce of free thought you can decide for yourself about the video.

[BrightCandle]

I completely agree with you.

I never thought Linus was trying to withhold sponsorship details but according to the total biscuit video perhaps LLT arnt being as clear as he needed to be. The best buy video never explicitly says that it's sponsored and according to Amercian and UK law it needs to. Ps Canada must have similar rules

 

I had a look into this last night and I couldn't personally find any guidance for Candian advertising newer than 1967! It definitely does not cover youtube or anything like that. Having read through the guidance I came to the conclusion there is absolutely no complaint to be made in Canada about any of this. Its legal in Canada, just not in the USA, UK and much of Europe.

 

There are plenty of examples of undeclared sponsorship, the 285 budget 4k video for example doesn't make clear that any products other than the CPU and motherboard came from AMD, the rest are just listed as part of the rig with no idea where they came from, where of course the Kingston SSD and the Coolermaster case and such were given to them free based on other deals they have, they just don't say it in that video at all. The best buy video never says its sponsored at all. Then you have the product placement of things like the Titan X cards  in the rigs which get mentioned quite a lot in the moving videos but often missing the notice that those were given to them free by Nvidia. You have the Kingston SSD, the Corsair RAM and other common parts appearing in a lot of reviews of other things with no "this was provided by" notices.

 

If people use the TotalBiscuit video as a guide I suspect they can find quite a lot of product placement and failure to disclose products were provided free throughout the Linus videos and some other sponsored videos without a clear mark, which has to be there before you enter the video (title or description). Its not about being biased its about the appearance of bias and its important to tell you audience the potential bias of using a product freely provided to you, and especially funding for a video by a company.

 

But its all legal in Canada as far as I can tell, they can continue until someone complains to youtube and asks for it to be blocked in the UK, USA and some European countries for breaching advertising legislation, then presumably it'll only be playable in Canada. I would rather Linus just take the complaint seriously and ensure that disclosures are as TotalBiscuit describes in the future.

[sonicpete]

For my sins i work in marketing and PR for a number of agencies in the UK and USA. I have seen plenty of businesses act in a deliberately unethical manner in the way that they promote products and mislead the consumer. There is a chasm of difference between being unethically paid to give a positive to review of a product/service/brand (don't be under any illusions it happens more times than you know) and being provided with review samples by a service/brand to provide a review. It should be noted that most brands do not care if a review is positive or negative. Negative reviews often generate just as many sales as positive ones. Providing samples for review is factored into the budget of most major brands to get exposure.

 

Linus' promotion of brands is obvious and transparent. From a marketing perspective Linus could have done a lot more to push brands in the face of viewers but has kept his integrity throughout his transition into a business. People should spend their time worrying about the channels that are actually acting in a manner that is underhand and not transparent

[MaxBunny]

The question is basically "Linus, how much does it cost to buy your review integrity? Do you have a price? Has or will any company ever reach it?"

 

That's to a guy whose business is based around the believability of his integrity and how well he provides information of a product, be it honest or only to showcase the features that get the sales while minimizing the cons to the public eye. Smaller reviewers have to keep up the positives to keep any sponsors in pretty much 100% of the cases, while many bigger ones can or have already become sellouts (for example, any gaming review website has long since lost all journalistic integrity).

 

I don't think you would ever give something a positive that you honestly thought was crap personally. Like you said, you selectively choose good products to review the majority of the time, and that even bad products would get sales based on your viewership, making it somewhat ethical to prevent the sales of them by not reviewing them.

 

AMD has about 20% market share in the discrete GPU space..

We talk more about Nvidia products more for a number of reasons (including the one above) but sponsorship isn't one of them. We make more in a month in Google adsense than Nvidia has paid Linus Media Group in total. Ever.

Graphics cards here and there for workstations are nice but don't imagine NV is some big time LTT sponsor.

Last time I checked AMD has actually done more sponsorship with us total than Nvidia.

It could also be that LMG members are NVIDIA/Intel fans out of preference too. It's just unfortunate that so many companies bundle their products with only NVIDIA/Intel giving you a limited pool of configurations to review. How many i7 GTX 970/980 GSync laptops do we need to see, really? Like it's anything special after the first million with every company copying the same thing and slapping their own brand on it. An AMD based freesync laptop would actually be relieving.

 

It's just not interesting seeing every possible configuration of peripherals on the same overclocked test machines either. "We ran all of these tests on an x99 i7 OVER 9000 edition with blah blah yada yada..." - I'm aware that it's to keep the lack-of-bottleneck consistency but I'd prefer to see multiple processors or at least vs the FX range as well to know what real world performance would be for everyone. You're talking about a massive price to performance difference between an i5 2xxxK-4xxxK, an FX 8320 OC'd, and an i7-5960X test rig.

 

So hopefully we could see some of those in the future. If the Ashes of Singularity issue ends up persisting across all new DX12 titles then AMD will have a 3 generation advantage gap on NVIDIA too. So that's gonna be a hot topic for ya with plenty of views to be had.   

[NumLock21]

This thread is so dumb, my IQ had dropped by 50.

If you want to buy something, then use own your decison on whether you want to buy it or not. Don't base your decison on some YT video. There was another YT channel, 3DGameMan. for the majority of the product he reviews, he always says "this is a kick ass product", but some most of the products aren't "kick ass" at all. 

As for those who want to become a lawyer and practice law, go to college, get your degree and pass your bar exam. Then you can practice law in the real world. Stop practicing it on the internet. If you think you "know" the law so well, instead of bashing LTT with his videos, then why not help him out. Now if you have your own YT channel and it got successful like what LMG is today, and all of a sudden some person just pop out nowhere saying, hey you can't do this or do that, you need to do this... according ot the "law", it can be really annoying.

[nunya bus]

Total Biscuits video. is way more relative than you think. 
and the EXACT SAME RULES APPLY. 

so Linus has replied, and I think that is cool, but all I hear is justification in his videos in his posts. I don't see any acknowledgement, and any pledge to look into these rules and pledge to follow them better. 

The laws are clear. 
the FCC clearly states. being given a review sample, a keeper, to review, experience, promote, to give ones feelings on. ALL REQUIRE DISCLOSURE. 
regardless if they a re a game or a product means jack squat. the same rules apply. 

Linus also states in a previous post. That he was given the titans for the workstation in exchange for them to do a video on it. THIS IS PAID MARKETING. no matter how you look at it, justify it, that is illegal LINUS. Im not saying dont make these videos. I like them. but at the start of every video and in the description. I need to know why this video was made. That means. if you got the sample for free, THEN SAY IT. if you got 6 titan X's THAN SAY IT. Dont come on here saying we dont take money and tell me its alright. because you've admitted to breaking the rules already on here. 

+linus have you seen Total B's video regarding this? if not could I invite you to watch it, check its citations. and then perhaps we can get a measured response. not just some justification. 
 

[TheProfosist]

If you can't pay people to do marketing you really should tell everyone who is going to college for marketing right now as they would probably like to know [emoji14]

[TheProfosist]

Total Biscuits video. is way more relative than you think. 

and the EXACT SAME RULES APPLY. 

so Linus has replied, and I think that is cool, but all I hear is justification in his videos in his posts. I don't see any acknowledgement, and any pledge to look into these rules and pledge to follow them better. 

The laws are clear. 

the FCC clearly states. being given a review sample, a keeper, to review, experience, promote, to give ones feelings on. ALL REQUIRE DISCLOSURE. 

regardless if they a re a game or a product means jack squat. the same rules apply. 

Linus also states in a previous post. That he was given the titans for the workstation in exchange for them to do a video on it. THIS IS PAID MARKETING. no matter how you look at it, justify it, that is illegal LINUS. Im not saying dont make these videos. I like them. but at the start of every video and in the description. I need to know why this video was made. That means. if you got the sample for free, THEN SAY IT. if you got 6 titan X's THAN SAY IT. Dont come on here saying we dont take money and tell me its alright. because you've admitted to breaking the rules already on here. 

+linus have you seen Total B's video regarding this? if not could I invite you to watch it, check its citations. and then perhaps we can get a measured response. not just some justification.

Well here ya go I watched the video and took some notes while watching http://goo.gl/TVmr15 I was a bit lazy and didnt type it up but if someone like @LinusTech or enough people would want me to type it up I can

Some stuff that applies directly to what you said:

For a review you have to disclose that you got the product for free. Does not necessarily need to be be disclosed in the video. At a minimum should it be disclosed in the description "above the fold", so you shouldnt have to click "show more". A example would be "I got this free to try" is a simple example.

Pretty sure Linus already does this and even does it in the video at the beginning, most tech-tubers do.

Also the rules are not the same. Review samples and the like are far more lax than directly sponsored content. My guess is because that is pretty much common place and no reviewer is going to pay for a product just to review it. (I was actually asked to do this recently.)

It also applies to where the reviews are done so Linus would have to look at what the laws are in Canada since that is where his company is based. EX: UK Trade Commission took down a UK specific ad. More in response to someone who said Linus had to follow US law since YouTube is based in the US.

Also these laws are to prevent Native Advertisement which is basically an ad written or shot not to look like and ad. Decent video from Last Week Tonight below. Total Biscuit gives a number of good examples of this and I would say non of LMG's stuff fits this description. I guess if people were super concerned or upset they could try to report LMG to the FTC but id say they are pretty much in the clear.