Buying YouTube Videos? Let’s talk ethics.

Inside PR

This week on Inside PR 518, we talk about the upgrade to the Twitter app that makes creating Tweet Threads as easy as clicking on a plus sign at the bottom of your tweet composition window. Twitter threads are a great way to tell more complex stories over time. And they have the extra value of pulling all the tweets in the thread to the top of your followers’ timelines whenever you add a tweet to the thread. This is a great way to stay in front of your audience without repeating tweets.

Sidewalk Labs, a Google/Alphabet company, has big plans to redevelop an industrial section of Toronto’s waterfront into a demo of the smart city of the future. Sounds like a great idea! But Sidewalk Labs’ path to make Toronto a showcase has raised controversy around the stewardship of the data about people that willl be collected. And skepticism has only been accentuated by suggestions that Waterfront Toronto, the agency that is responsible for the lands Sidewalk Labs wants to develop, has been so eager to make the deal that they have become too cozy with Sidewalk Labs too early in the negotiation process. A communications challenge at any time. But an especially big challenge post-Cambridge Analytica.

The New York Times profile of the fake Youtube views business is the latest example of the social platforms rewarding bad actions. This is just plain wrong. But for PR folks, salt was rubbed in the wound by the suggestion in the article that most of the views are purchased by PR and marketing agencies. It’s hard to imagine who those agencies would be. Do you work at a PR firm or know someone who works at a PR firm that buys YouTube views? If you do, we’d love to hear from you and maybe even get you to come on the show to talk with us about this practice.

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