THE RISE OF YOUTUBERS MEDIA SPECIAL
(From left to right): Alastair ‘Ali-A’ Aiken, Ashley Marie ‘AshleyMarieeGaming’ Surcombe, Brandon ‘Messyourself’ Temasfieldt, Spencer ‘Spencer FC’ Owen and Tom ‘Syndicate’ Cassell
“You build up interest and you continue to cover something. That’s now the angle that sites like Kotaku have taken because that’s how people want to consume it. If they are interested in something, they won’t just watch a review and click off: they want to see more content. We follow up and make sure there are always things going on. It’s not just one hit and done.” LEGAL TROUBLES As their influence grows, YouTubers have come under scrutiny. Recently there was the CSGO Lotto scandal, in which YouTubers Syndicate and TmarTn promoted a CounterStrike skin betting site that they owned (but pretended that they did not). Then there’s YouTubers’ handling of paid promotions. In the past, networks like Machinima have had run-ins with the FTC for not disclosing paid-for videos promoting Xbox One. Recently, the FTC lambasted Warner Bros for paying ‘hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars’ to YouTubers to promote 2014’s
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Shadow of Mordor, with some channels not disclosing this deal. One of the YouTubers embroiled in this was PewDiePie, despite the fact he actually did disclose he had been paid by Warner. In a video following the FTC ruling, PewDiePie said that it was a bit of a grey area in 2014 when it came to disclosure. But is it clearer now? “I would say so,” says Brandon ‘MessYourself’ Temasfieldt. “YouTube is really new, so guidelines are only being put into place now. Some companies ask you to put ‘ad’ in the thumbnail before viewers even watch the video; some ask you to put a disclosure in the top of the video description and then there are others that ask you to say something at the start of the video. Then it isn’t a big deal for a lot of companies and it really should be. It’s all a bit new and in a few years time it’ll just be the standard thing to have this implemented into every bit of sponsored content.” But Cassell says it’s up to the advertiser to make it clear what YouTubers need to disclose.
“It’s definitely clearer,” he says. “There are still a lot of questions. I worked with Machinima in 2013 on the Xbox campaign. It was a grey area then. It’s not like we’re going to sit there and read 500 pages of FTC guidelines. It comes across from whatever business is advertising with you to make it clear for the YouTuber.” Ashley ‘AshleyMarieeGaming’ Surcombe says it is clearer, largely because consumers are more aware about what should be done. “People like to point out whether a YouTuber does something wrong,” she says. “In 2014 or 2015, when not too many people knew about the FTC, you could get away with not putting ‘ad’ or ‘sponsored content’ and not many people cared. But by the time 2016 came around, it seemed that a lot more people wanted to attack a YouTuber and they would find the smallest things I guess there are rules, so people really should abide by them.” But Aiken says the need to follow the rules is important. “That area is still tough,” he says. “Back then, when I was sent
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a game or paid me to promote something, it was a grey area. I never had to openly say anything. But it never changed what I was trying to put across in those videos. That was the case for anyone who was doing this stuff back then because there were no rulings. “Now, it is much stricter – YouTubers need to disclose the fact it’s a sponsored video in the description. You need to make sure your audience knows that. That’s done before people click on the video. Really, you should have something that says ‘ad’ in the thumbnail or at the start of the video so that viewers go into that content knowing it’s a paid piece. It’s not like someone sees that straight away and hates you straight away. It’s just making them aware that this piece of content has had paid promotion behind it, which is fair enough. “It’s going to happen; YouTubers are always going to be paid to play games, and as long as they are putting across a fair opinion that is theirs, and as long as the audience knows it’s paid-for, then everyone is in the best position.”
September 9th 2016