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YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn't anyone else?

60 videos recommended on HN
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6 HN users recommended this explainer4 months2021–2024 score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN cites it as a clear explainer on sponsorship and ad disclosure rules and their inconsistency across media.

Tom Scott examines why YouTubers must declare paid endorsements while TV, film and other media face no such rule, comparing regulations in the UK and US.

“Tom Scott has a great video on the inconsistency that online influencers and youtubers have to declare ads/product-placements while traditional media does not.” (HN, 2021)

6 recommendations · 3 citations · 1 jokes · Explainers · partly dated

10 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@zinekeller Sep 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules
A bit unrelated, but if you want a overview of sponsorships in different media platforms across different countries (mostly Britain and US though), I suggest watching Tom Scott's excellent video: [this video] . (Note that the video is ~30 minutes long. It's unfortunately that complicated, even when only talking rules mainly in two countries.)
Overview of sponsorship rules across media and countries
@Fradow Sep 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules
> Influencers are actually some of the only advertisers who aren’t well regulated in Europe, When was the last time you saw product placements being clearly labeled in TV shows/movies? For most people, the answer is "never". Just because we are used to it doesn't mean it's fair. Tom Scott explains it much better than I can: [this video]
Explains unlabeled product placement in TV and film versus influencers
@hnbad Mar 2023 Recommends
on HN thread SEC Charges Justin Sun and His Crypto Companies for Fraud
FWIW the UK also has fairly strict laws about this (possibly stricter than Germany). Tom Scott once did a good video about this: [this video] German streamers also ran into a separate issue with German broadcasting regulations when they tried to run a 24/7 streaming format. Turns out you need a broadcasting license for continuous scheduled programming like that.
Good explainer on UK sponsorship disclosure rules
@cowl Apr 2023 Recommends
on HN thread The Case for Banning Children from Social Media
Read more
> not enough context, maybe > Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges. Youtube alone has 720,000 hours of fresh video content per day Tiktok must have less number of hours but more Videos per day. Add Instagram, facebook, Twitter and it's impossible for anyone to verify this manually so in the end how is the platform supposed to decide what to show and what not where the "not enough context, maybe" is the most common answer? > Is product placement in movie an ad? > yes, clearly not so clearly even in this case. see [this video] , a very nice recap of what an ad is.
Recap of what counts as an ad
@xmprt Apr 2024 Recommends
on HN thread A16Z blogs are just glorified marketing
There's only so much money you can make off of banner ads and at a certain point native advertisements are way more lucrative. I wonder how they get around disclosure requirements but I guess it's probably because the articles are never directly funded but there's some other form of compensation in the backend. Tom Scott made an interesting video about internet advertising regulations a while back. [1] [1]: [this video]
Covers internet advertising regulations

Citations, criticism and jokes

@throw14082020 Feb 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Fake Amazon reviews 'being sold in bulk' online
Why don't we make it the law for reviewers to disclose incentives in the reviews/ videos, similar to how youtubers have to disclose it [this video]
Shows YouTubers must disclose sponsorships, suggesting reviewers should too
@trevcanhuman Sep 2021 Cites it
on HN thread Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules
Yet the TV industry is still far from done with shady advertising. Very Related: YouTubers have to declare ads. Why doesn't anyone else? [0] On another note, that is like the shortest news article ever! It's literally just 102 words! [0] [this video]
Related video on ad disclosure inconsistency
@kn0where Aug 2022 Cites it
on HN thread AWS Just Walk Out Technology
Read more
I'm 90% sure Amazon paid SNL to make this ad (SNL does paid brand integration in various skits, see Tom Scott's video on product placement for other examples [this video] ). It's a spoof commercial where the product advertised isn't what's being made fun of. The set is unusually authentic to actual Amazon Go stores, down to the "just walk out" logo signage, and the loud and clear message of the ad is that you should stop worrying and trust Amazon. They're lampshading people's distrust of automation, especially in a liberal context of racial equity, and demonstrating that actually Keenan was really silly for thinking a computer would be racist.
Gives examples of paid brand integration in sketches
@aaron695 Oct 2021 Makes a joke
on HN thread What's the deal with fictional influencers?
Tom Scott talks about how he is fictional - [this video] I think the secret is out. I don't get it? Do people think Taylor Swift, Joe Biden, Ōsaka Naomi are real still? Or are we just projecting other people are that stupid to think 'media personalities' are real to make ourselves look smart?

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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