
YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn't anyone else?
About this video
Tom Scott examines why YouTubers must declare paid endorsements while TV, film and other media face no such rule, comparing regulations in the UK and US.
Why it appears in the archive
HN cites it as a clear explainer on sponsorship and ad disclosure rules and their inconsistency across media.
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From the Hacker News discussion
A bit unrelated, but if you want a overview of sponsorships in different media platforms across different countries (mostly Britain and US though), I suggest watching Tom Scott's excellent video: [VIDEO] . (Note that the video is ~30 minutes long. It's unfortunately that complicated, even when only talking rules mainly in two countries.)
Read original comment ↗On the subject, Tom Scott has a great video on the inconsistency that online influencers and youtubers have to declare ads/product-placements while traditional media does not. [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗> Influencers are actually some of the only advertisers who aren’t well regulated in Europe, When was the last time you saw product placements being clearly labeled in TV shows/movies? For most people, the answer is "never". Just because we are used to it doesn't mean it's fair. Tom Scott explains it much better than I can: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗FWIW the UK also has fairly strict laws about this (possibly stricter than Germany). Tom Scott once did a good video about this: [VIDEO] German streamers also ran into a separate issue with German broadcasting regulations when they tried to run a 24/7 streaming format. Turns out you need a broadcasting license for continuous scheduled programming like that.
Read original comment ↗> not enough context, maybe > Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges. Youtube alone has 720,000 hours of fresh video content per day Tiktok must have less number of hours but more Videos per day. Add Instagram, facebook, Twitter and it's impossible for anyone to verify this manually so in the end how is the platform supposed to decide what to show and what not where the "not enough context, maybe" is the most common answer? > Is product placement in movie an ad? > yes, clearly not so clearly even in this case. see [VIDEO] , a very nice recap of what an ad is.
Read original comment ↗There's only so much money you can make off of banner ads and at a certain point native advertisements are way more lucrative. I wonder how they get around disclosure requirements but I guess it's probably because the articles are never directly funded but there's some other form of compensation in the backend. Tom Scott made an interesting video about internet advertising regulations a while back. [1] [1]: [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Why don't we make it the law for reviewers to disclose incentives in the reviews/ videos, similar to how youtubers have to disclose it [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗Yet the TV industry is still far from done with shady advertising. Very Related: YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn't anyone else? [0] On another note, that is like the shortest news article ever! It's literally just 102 words! [0] [VIDEO]
Read original comment ↗