Pearl - YOUTUBERS Are Selling Their INTEGRITY For MONEY! ｜ Pearl Daily

00:00:00.000 during the last three years dealing with youtubers and social media people there are highs and lows

00:00:07.440 i have met really really good friends through youtube and through social media but the problem

00:00:15.120 you get with social media influencers youtubers is many of them do not come in with a genuine

00:00:22.000 sense of curiosity i got into media because i wanted to know what was true about the world

00:00:28.320 and i thought it was so cool that i could talk to people from different cultures different

00:00:33.040 perspectives and figure out what i thought was true about the world but the issue you get with

00:00:40.400 youtubers is a lot of them get into it for money during this process i had people that you know

00:00:47.280 i would have considered friends that made hit pieces on me and these were people i remember

00:00:52.240 there was one video that i saw scheduled right and this was someone i was friends with and i

00:00:57.840 thought it was going to be a positive video and it was a complete hit piece it was so crazy i was

00:01:02.640 like what you know i've had hit pieces from people that had met my family people that had been in my

00:01:08.880 home you know that sort of thing so in this process what i realized about youtubers is that

00:01:15.200 money is more important to them than integrity money is more important to them than doing the

00:01:21.680 right thing and it's a very different world because fame clout and money are the motivation

00:01:30.160 in social interactions and you start to get a little paranoid about who you can trust who you

00:01:36.640 can speak to openly because you don't know who's gonna leak a screenshot out of context

00:01:42.640 you don't know who's gonna say that you said something you didn't say on a show or whatever

00:01:48.080 and you kind of learn that you have to keep influencers and youtubers at an arm's length

00:01:52.960 because there is too much money in them turning on each other and this is bigger than me guys

00:01:58.480 it's not even about me i've seen this for years you know to you like let's look at david dobrik's

00:02:04.720 vlog squad how many of those people are still friends five ten years later how many people

00:02:10.400 have made videos talking about the other it's pretty much inevitable right so what does this

00:02:16.960 have to do with the story today so youtube took down several right-wing political channels that

00:02:23.040 have been linked with allegations for the justice department that russian government employees were

00:02:28.400 paying right-wing influencers in the united states to produce content the google-owned video site

00:02:34.720 terminated tenant media and four other channels by right-wing media entrepreneur lauren chen as

00:02:40.640 part of the company's ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations a youtube

00:02:47.200 spokesperson said in an emailed statement thursday on wednesday the justice department indicted two

00:02:52.720 employees of the russian government-backed media organization formerly known as russia today

00:02:58.080 accusing them of illegally funding a tennessee-based media organization the government has not

00:03:05.040 specifically mentioned tenant but a quote from the media organization's youtube channel listed

00:03:10.080 the indictment, suggesting it is the media organization targeted. Some right-wing influencers

00:03:17.280 have subsequently identified Tenant as the company in the indictment. Media business records list

00:03:23.980 Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, as the owners of Tenant Media on Thursday.

00:03:28.900 Chen's contributor contract with conservative media organization Blaze TV was terminated.

00:03:35.860 Prosecutors allege that the founders of the media company in the indictment

00:03:39.380 knew their funding was coming from Moscow and privately acknowledged in messages to each other

00:03:45.480 that their backers were Russian. So my initial thoughts when I heard this story is for years

00:03:53.220 they have been accusing Trump of getting funding from Russia. And we all know that's BS. But my

00:04:00.200 experience with YouTubers, influencers, and social media stars is that most of them will do anything

00:04:06.600 for money and most of them can be bought. So would it surprise me if these end up being true?

00:04:15.220 Not particularly. Tenant Media did not immediately return a request for comments sent through a

00:04:22.060 contact form on the website. YouTube was the main platform for videos produced by Tenant Media

00:04:29.080 and is popular with conservative media personalities, including those who had worked

00:04:34.620 with tenants such as Tim Poole, Benny Johnsons, and Dave Rubin. And guys, by the way, as someone

00:04:40.160 who started a media company, like a network, I would look around at the views from a lot of these

00:04:46.080 media companies that were started. I would look at their views per video. I would look at their,

00:04:52.240 you know, sponsors. And something would not add up to me. I did not understand how a lot of these

00:04:58.820 people were making money. Knowing what I know about the numbers, it did not make sense because

00:05:05.940 there's a lot that goes into running these channels. You have producer costs, you have

00:05:09.460 editor costs, you have production costs, and something did not add up. So from my point of

00:05:16.240 view, I figured a lot of these companies were just not profitable, or maybe they had some big donor

00:05:22.620 backing them so does it make sense to me that she had a big backer maybe you know i wanted to make 0.92

00:05:31.100 a joke that i can't make maybe she didn't know all the details right but does it make sense to me

00:05:37.820 that that's a possibility yes do i think we should wait until the facts come out also yes

00:05:44.460 in the weeks after russia's 2022 invasion of ukraine youtube took down rt's channel which

00:05:50.860 has been globally popular on the platform. YouTube is the only major Western social media site still

00:05:57.020 available inside of Russia, which remains popular. But in recent months, the Russian government has

00:06:02.940 stepped up its throttling of the site, degrading quality for many users in the country.

00:06:08.860 So Tim Pool apparently was getting paid $100,000 an episode for Tenet Media. So I have been

00:06:16.300 contacted by the FBI as a potential victim of a crime. A victim? Do you think, if you got 100k

00:06:23.440 per episode, would you label yourself as a victim? I don't, is that out of touch? Is that just,

00:06:28.840 is that just me? I don't, okay. The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal

00:06:35.240 investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance

00:06:39.900 in this matter. The first comment is, dude, don't talk to them without a lawyer. A lawyer up is my

00:06:45.700 official recommendation yeah so it looks like there's a lot of people involved in this dave

00:06:50.740 rubens involved i want to say lauren southern's involved too a lot of people were hooked up with

00:06:56.320 tenant media and i want to wait until the facts come out i do i do think that deleting lauren's

00:07:02.360 channel was a bit premature but again people are people none of this really surprises me

Pearl - September 08, 2024

YOUTUBERS Are Selling Their INTEGRITY For MONEY! ｜ Pearl Daily

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript