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Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

abc.net.au

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Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#22

How is this any different than traditional media? Cable news creates fake problems and controversy constantly, and pay their news anchors well to do so. In return, many companies that rely on these problems, turn around and advertise on these networks. Social media is just following the same strategy.

What are you trying to say? That Facebook should be excused because others also behave badly?

Otherwise, we can dislike both things and it adds nothing to say "but why aren't your talking about the other thing instead". And for what it's worth, there is a pretty clear difference between the journalistic standards of FB bait and of the legacy media.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#23
post #12

Social media platforms have been paying out for attention seeking behaviour for a long time now. It’s why every YouTube video now has the same lame shocked face, red arrows, and clickbait title. It’s why assholes film themselves intentionally pissing people off for TikTok. It’s a whole category called nuisance tubing. I remember during COVID I saw a number of YouTubers swing from producing normal content into conspir…

Indeed. What I noticed is that the quality of the videos went down on youtube in the last 3 years. Now, the quality was never as great as it used to be anyway, but Google changed various things that made youtube worse. They are slowly killing off youtube without realising it.

A lot of channels got bought by private equity. YouTube is saturated with similar content so creators have to resort to clickbait to keep up. AI has allowed creators to increase their efficiency writing scripts.

I don't know what you believe Google changed about YouTube, but I believe it has just made itself worse.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#24

How is this any different than traditional media? Cable news creates fake problems and controversy constantly, and pay their news anchors well to do so. In return, many companies that rely on these problems, turn around and advertise on these networks. Social media is just following the same strategy.

Social media has been protected by the Safe Harbour rules because they had millions of users creating content which was difficult to monitor and moderate.

If they start producing their own content they might get considered like a news organisation with a whole different set of rules being applied to them and Safe Harbour being inapplicable.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#26
post #4

Ragebait is what FB runs on. A lot of these people do not even believe what they say. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-11-16/kin...

FB and IG reels both. Twitter gets a lot of rightfully owed criticism about it's fair share but its always weird to me seeing people slam twitter then go right on to IG or some other meta owned app as if its significantly different.

I'm so glad I got myself off Instagram and Reddit, the longer I go without them the more I realise what massive cognitohazards both of them are if you spend too much time on them. Different mechanisms but both were much more of a net drain on me than I realised before leaving them.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#27
post #21

[flagged]

Meta could help the situation, for instance by providing fact-checking tools and banning rage-bait creators.

Instead they have removed those tools and are paying these creators. So it's not just consumers to blame here.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#28
post #5

Clickbait. Title makes it sound like they pay them directly to promote the platform, but they get paid through facebook content monetisation program

Not Clickbait. If you provide both: a) a service to earn money from content b) an algo promoting those videos then yes, IMHO they pay them directly for the content produced.

There is a distinction between:

- Meta is commissioning or sponsoring rage-bait

- Controversial creators are earning money through Facebook's content monetization program

The title is ambiguous (at first, I thought it was the first case), and that's where the clickbait lies.

No doubt that also the second case is a serious problem, but that's orthogonal to the ambiguity of the title.

Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta

#30
post #9

This isn't anything new, it was abundantly clear after Facebook removed their fact checking team during covid that the priority was engagement over everything else, and rage bait is exactly that.

I just want to add, that they (FB and other big social media) probably understood what propaganda power they wield after 2016 facebook and cambridge analytica scandal.

Personally - I think that this was the moment when silicon valley billionaires without shadow of a doubt understood that they have power what used to be reserved only for state actors. Bonus - for using that power they get fined penny on the dollar at most or just slap on the wrist.

Update: now situation is even worse - states actively buy propaganda with social media companies, making those companies even more rich and influential.

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