This is extremely disconcerting. Every 3rd YouTube ad I’ve seen for the last few weeks has been PragerU. It bills itself as an educational centrist system, but in reality it espouses extreme right wing idelogies via revisionist history and data manipulation. The ads are very subtle in a terrifying way, and I’m afraid they will truly influence a lot of kids, as many (not all) of the ads are directed right to the children and young adults who use it most. some are directed right to kids who use it most.
It’s all done with careful writing and while a little research led me to the real reason this is happening (yet another far right billionaire trying to brainwash the masses), unless someone is seeking reality they will be tricked. One of their campaigns is “fossil fuels are green”. The others devolve into how unfettered unregulated Capitalism and nearly non existent taxes is the only hope for the country.
I’m trying to stay away from a lot of political stuff because at times I feel like I cannot handle how subversive and, is it wrong to use the word “evil”? the right wing has become and it feels like it drowns me daily. So here I’ve been trying to watch some delightful BBC comedy on YouTube that is nowhere else, yet can’t escape the right wing propaganda machine even there.
I fear for our country and this world so much and am so powerless to help.
Yes that is it. The first few times the semi-forced YouTube ad viewing I figured it was just a small operation to try and influence the last elections. Then I saw ads that were designed to capture the interest of teens and aligned to a younger audience. I’ve now seen at least 10 different “educational ads”, the latest one coming from Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs.
Did I somehow misconstrue their operation? I don’t have an ad-blocker so Google knows all of my preferences. If they’re hitting me with so many of these, they’ve got to be spending a ton of money to blanket everyone they can.
Looks like they’re just paying for ads to advance their crap viewpoint? No law against it, unless you are a russian national and your crap ads are trying to influence our elections?
I wasn’t trying to say it was was illegal. I just found it incredibly sad and distressing how much money is being pumped into using disinformation and propaganda to further influence and divide the populace. My nieces and nephews spend so much time YouTube, I know they don’t have age filtering in use, so they’re getting these as well. If these political groups put all those billions and billions of dollars to good use. :(
The young aren’t worth the price of their freedom anyway. How many Bo Diddley albums do they own? None, that’s how many. So let them all be deceived. But take away their votes, and give power to a secret cabal of gentlemen of style and taste who rule from the shadows.
Speaking of YouTube ads, who’s responsible for the ones where a skinny bald dude in a black suit gives a lecture (usually critical of Google/Apple/Facebook) in a nasal voice? They go on for quite a while so I’ve never figured out who they’re by.
Scott Galloway. He is an NYTimes Marketing Professor that runs a marketing firm. I accidentally clicked on one of his links once, and I’ve been subscribed ever since. As far as I can tell, those are his own views, and he isn’t being paid by a far-right media group.
His work came up a lot these last few weeks on TWIT, and they had him on triangulation.
I ran into one of these commercials after reading this thread. It had the “Dirty Jobs” guy saying something to the effect of ‘I can promise you two things are absolute: [insert two forgettable truisms], the rest is my opinion which I like to call ‘the dirty truth’’.
It was just strange. Is that supposed to be like a dirty bomb? A dirty Martini? It made me not want to watch the promoted material. The communicated meaning was ‘I will be giving you the tainted truth, because of my opinion’.
Is relativism now such a desirable trait? Was this some sort of subtle reverse-psychology tactic meant to make me question my current trusted sources (if so it seemed a horribly ineffective way of going about it)?
I keep seeing these as well. Strangely when i watch obsidian ants elite dangerous podcast. I cant figure out a way to flag it as offensive. Seems like a big gap at google. I would like to ability for me & my kids to not see fascist propaganda.
