[kelnos]

I would honestly rather my business fail than participate in that sort of manipulation. "Unethical" doesn't even begin to describe it.

The game is supported by the players willing to play. If you play, you're culpable.

[filoleg]

>I would honestly rather my business fail than participate in that sort of manipulation. "Unethical" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Ethics become a bit more complex when you are employing people. Would you rather your business fail, so that all the people working for you become unemployed overnight, despite a lot of them having their livelihoods depend on that?

To be clear, I don't think that "i have people working for me, whose livelihoods depend on my business surviving" is a great excuse for all kinds of immoral behavior, but it definitely adds to the nuance. And given what specific scenario we are dealing with here, I don't think it is as clear-cut as you try to make it seem.

[vmception]

There are a lot of people inspired by representation and wouldn’t know of it if the headline didn’t say so

It is the other people that don’t understand that and are also triggered by it that boost the engagement by orders of magnitude

Publicists do more representation posts because of the engagement

Publicists are aware why the engagement is so high

Is it unethical manipulation if the publicists aren’t aware?

Is it unethical manipulation if people weren’t triggered by representation posts?

Is it unethical manipulation if the platforms themselves didn’t rely on and enable commenter controversy?

But go ahead, gnaw at the messenger who hired a publicist and is telling you how the whole network of publicists operate right now