[lovich]

If we’re going to start shunning people for that level of harmful impact I think this board might be affected at a higher rate than the average population. Isn’t a large chunk of the users here employees from firms making all their money off of ads?

I don’t see how advertisements aren’t lying and manipulation at scale in a meaningfuly different capacity

[TeMPOraL]

Sure, I'm not denying it. I still[0] maintain that advertising is a cancer on modern society, and I've successfully steered my career away from anything related to adtech. HN itself is a diverse crowd, there's a large crowd with strong anti-marketing sentiment here, including people currently working in adtech.

Also, there are degrees to everything. I'm picking on influencing here because it's extremely direct and blatant form of manipulation. If that isn't rejected by society at large, then there's no hope for it dealing with more traditional forms of manipulation.

----

[0] - http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html

[lovich]

I'm exploring the idea here because I haven't given it much thought before, so don't take the following as an aggressive defense.

Couldn't influencers be considered a more positive form of advertising in that they are open about what they are? I've always had more trouble with insidious types of advertisements or ones where the relationship between someone reviewing an item and the vendor isn't disclosed. When I know someone is an influence/tech evangelist/promoter/some other term, I at least can have my mental guard up, which is not something I can keep up 24/7

[TeMPOraL]

> so don't take the following as an aggressive defense.

I won't, but I appreciate the clarification nonetheless. I'm also trying to be non-confrontational, and while my opinion on ads is rather firm, it's still subject to change as I understand the world and the human condition more.

> Couldn't influencers be considered a more positive form of advertising in that they are open about what they are? (...) When I know someone is an influence/tech evangelist/promoter/some other term, I at least can have my mental guard up (...)

So, we have to distinguish between the two kinds of influencers here. Brand ambassadors, tech evangelists and the like are at least somewhat open about this (though elsewhere in the thread I've seen examples of ones that are purposefully unclear). It still feels icky to me, but I understand the game. Though again, many don't - I've seen plenty of people buy into what tech evangelists say uncritically, in part because their enthusiasm is an effective manipulation tactic, acting on an emotional level to get around peoples' defenses.

And then there are the other kind of influencers - the ones I believe are the majority on social media. The ones running random streams and channels, some sneaking in paid product placement covertly, some doing sponsorship section overtly - in both cases, the reason they're being paid is because of (for a lack of better term) trust transfer. You like the podcasts some influencer makes, so you mistakenly assume their recent interest in cosmetics is genuine. You like the high-quality science videos a YouTuber creates, so you assume they know what they're talking about when they pitch you a VPN service in the sponsorship section - even though, in truth, they have no first clue about it, and are setting you up for a bad deal. Either way, they don't care - you're not their peer, you're not their friend. You're the resource they're exploiting.

What irks me the most is when I see people intentionally seeking out career as this latter kind of influencer. They're already convinced that a degree of dishonesty is totally legitimate way of making money. I call it dishonesty, because I doubt they'd pitch the same cosmetics or NFTs to their mother or their close friends, in the same way they do to their audience on their channel.