Pearl - September 08, 2024YOUTUBERS Are Selling Their INTEGRITY For MONEY! ｜ Pearl Daily
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about my experience with influencers and social media influencers, and why I believe they are bought and sold. I also talk about a recent story about Russian government funding of conservative media outlets, and whether or not it makes sense.
Transcript
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during the last three years dealing with youtubers and social media people there are highs and lows
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i have met really really good friends through youtube and through social media but the problem
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you get with social media influencers youtubers is many of them do not come in with a genuine
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sense of curiosity i got into media because i wanted to know what was true about the world
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and i thought it was so cool that i could talk to people from different cultures different
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perspectives and figure out what i thought was true about the world but the issue you get with
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youtubers is a lot of them get into it for money during this process i had people that you know
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i would have considered friends that made hit pieces on me and these were people i remember
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there was one video that i saw scheduled right and this was someone i was friends with and i
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thought it was going to be a positive video and it was a complete hit piece it was so crazy i was
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like what you know i've had hit pieces from people that had met my family people that had been in my
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home you know that sort of thing so in this process what i realized about youtubers is that
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money is more important to them than integrity money is more important to them than doing the
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right thing and it's a very different world because fame clout and money are the motivation
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in social interactions and you start to get a little paranoid about who you can trust who you
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can speak to openly because you don't know who's gonna leak a screenshot out of context
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you don't know who's gonna say that you said something you didn't say on a show or whatever
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and you kind of learn that you have to keep influencers and youtubers at an arm's length
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because there is too much money in them turning on each other and this is bigger than me guys
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it's not even about me i've seen this for years you know to you like let's look at david dobrik's
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vlog squad how many of those people are still friends five ten years later how many people
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have made videos talking about the other it's pretty much inevitable right so what does this
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have to do with the story today so youtube took down several right-wing political channels that
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have been linked with allegations for the justice department that russian government employees were
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paying right-wing influencers in the united states to produce content the google-owned video site
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terminated tenant media and four other channels by right-wing media entrepreneur lauren chen as
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part of the company's ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations a youtube
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spokesperson said in an emailed statement thursday on wednesday the justice department indicted two
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employees of the russian government-backed media organization formerly known as russia today
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accusing them of illegally funding a tennessee-based media organization the government has not
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specifically mentioned tenant but a quote from the media organization's youtube channel listed
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the indictment, suggesting it is the media organization targeted. Some right-wing influencers
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have subsequently identified Tenant as the company in the indictment. Media business records list
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Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan, as the owners of Tenant Media on Thursday.
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Chen's contributor contract with conservative media organization Blaze TV was terminated.
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Prosecutors allege that the founders of the media company in the indictment
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knew their funding was coming from Moscow and privately acknowledged in messages to each other
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that their backers were Russian. So my initial thoughts when I heard this story is for years
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they have been accusing Trump of getting funding from Russia. And we all know that's BS. But my
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experience with YouTubers, influencers, and social media stars is that most of them will do anything
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for money and most of them can be bought. So would it surprise me if these end up being true?
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Not particularly. Tenant Media did not immediately return a request for comments sent through a
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contact form on the website. YouTube was the main platform for videos produced by Tenant Media
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and is popular with conservative media personalities, including those who had worked
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with tenants such as Tim Poole, Benny Johnsons, and Dave Rubin. And guys, by the way, as someone
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who started a media company, like a network, I would look around at the views from a lot of these
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media companies that were started. I would look at their views per video. I would look at their,
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you know, sponsors. And something would not add up to me. I did not understand how a lot of these
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people were making money. Knowing what I know about the numbers, it did not make sense because
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there's a lot that goes into running these channels. You have producer costs, you have
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editor costs, you have production costs, and something did not add up. So from my point of
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view, I figured a lot of these companies were just not profitable, or maybe they had some big donor
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backing them so does it make sense to me that she had a big backer maybe you know i wanted to make
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a joke that i can't make maybe she didn't know all the details right but does it make sense to me
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that that's a possibility yes do i think we should wait until the facts come out also yes
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in the weeks after russia's 2022 invasion of ukraine youtube took down rt's channel which
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has been globally popular on the platform. YouTube is the only major Western social media site still
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available inside of Russia, which remains popular. But in recent months, the Russian government has
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stepped up its throttling of the site, degrading quality for many users in the country.
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So Tim Pool apparently was getting paid $100,000 an episode for Tenet Media. So I have been
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contacted by the FBI as a potential victim of a crime. A victim? Do you think, if you got 100k
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per episode, would you label yourself as a victim? I don't, is that out of touch? Is that just,
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is that just me? I don't, okay. The FBI believes I have information relevant to an ongoing criminal
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investigation and have requested a voluntary interview. I will be offering my assistance
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in this matter. The first comment is, dude, don't talk to them without a lawyer. A lawyer up is my
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official recommendation yeah so it looks like there's a lot of people involved in this dave
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rubens involved i want to say lauren southern's involved too a lot of people were hooked up with
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tenant media and i want to wait until the facts come out i do i do think that deleting lauren's
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channel was a bit premature but again people are people none of this really surprises me