Society/Culture "Grifting" versus ethics: Is it anything goes?

[Gethelred]

The words 'Grifting' and 'grifter' pop up a lot on the SRP, so it's probably worthwhile to have a thread dedicated to discussing the ethics of online marketing versus the full kit of manipulative tactics used in online spaces to obtain revenue.

Is it clickbait? Is it shilling? Is it taking money from an advertiser or pumping your own products? Is it stunts? Is it deliberately dogwhistling in your content to bring in the right wing crowd?

Is there such a thing as ethical dealings under capitalism, anyway? If there isn't, why is grifting any different from what every business does or how they operate?

Where is the line for you between legitimate advertising or marketing and producing good or worthwhile content to make money and being a no good, never good, souless grifter?

Standard board rules apply. Go nuts.

 

[Spearman]

When I use the term grifter, I mean it in the confidence game context: knowingly peddling false or misleading information for gain. Carlson is an example. He doesn't believe some the s**t he spews, but does it anyway for the power. Jones as well, makes millions off the BS he sells.
There are others who prey off the lies they spread, but how much they believe them is uncertain. I think most know they are not true conspiracies. A grifter jumps on the bandwagons of ignorance. The political grifters are bandwagoners.
In this information overload age, consumers need to evolve into smarter ones. Impossible I'm afraid for the majority 'first worlders', let alone less worldly or advanced societies.
Misleading advertising, clickbaiting, and outright fraud have always been a part of sales, ever since people started trading stuff tens of millennia ago. (think stone age Michael Palin hawking a lovely piece of rock )

 

[ElectricG]

When I use the term grifter, I mean it in the confidence game context: knowingly peddling false or misleading information for gain. Carlson is an example. He doesn't believe some the s**t he spews, but does it anyway for the power. Jones as well, makes millions off the BS he sells.
There are others who prey off the lies they spread, but how much they believe them is uncertain. I think most know they are not true conspiracies. A grifter jumps on the bandwagons of ignorance. The political grifters are bandwagoners.
In this information overload age, consumers need to evolve into smarter ones. Impossible I'm afraid for the majority 'first worlders', let alone less worldly or advanced societies.
Misleading advertising, clickbaiting, and outright fraud have always been a part of sales, ever since people started trading stuff tens of millennia ago. (think stone age Michael Palin hawking a lovely piece of rock )

I would add political commentators whose viewership and therefore income depends on causing as much controversy as possible. If you are making all of views more incendiary because you’ve worked out it makes more money, then they’re not really your views are they? And if you’re getting rich saying things you don’t mean, then you’re full of shite.

 

[Sqotty from office works]

Grafter and spiv generally go together.
Since I can remember my dad would always tell us never trust a man of the church, man in uniform or a spiv.
Learnt to pick one from a mile away.
I think gift is an americanism of spiv.

People these days don't get taught about spivs until they get taken for a ride.
eg scommo was a spiv.

 

[Malifice]

Grifting runs the gamut from pre-Internet s**t (think Scientology and associated snake oil salesmen) to the current social media-based model.

1) Post inflammatory crap on social media (X, YouTube, Instagram) etc.
2) Let the algorithm do its job.
3) Profit.

The system rewards flame wars, controversy and misinformation. Those stories are then copied and linked, and go viral, and the next thing you know a lot of vulnerable people are utterly cooked (polarized and radicalized) by nonsense.

The Lauren Southerns, Alex Jones and Avi Yemnis of the internet.

There are tons of 'influencers' who know exactly what they're doing, and simply dont give a *. Vaccine misinformation was a perfect example during the COVID crisis, with a significant amount of misinformation being deliberately spread by 'influencers' who knew exactly what they were doing, and why.

The outcome was literally hundreds of thousands of people unnecessarily dying (in agony) when they didnt need to.

But as long as the AdSense revenue and sponsors rolled in, the grifters simply saw it as a win.

I personally can't stand the campaigners. I loathe cookers generally, but the reality is for most of them that it's not really their fault they're cookers. They've been fried by the algorithm by grifters who should ******* know better and where my true loathing lies.

 

[FireKrakouer]

I think it's incredibly wrong when people knowingly and dishonestly push misinformation to benefit themselves at the expense of others. It's less evil when they push something that is incorrect but they genuinely believe in it and have no bad intent.

IMO Joe Rogan is an example of the latter. He platformed unscientific views during covid, but they were views that he seemingly genuinely believed and that he was not directly profiting from. He would also throw in disclaimers to the effect of "Hey I'm not a doctor, I'm an idiot. Go get vaxed, I just think we should also prioritise people improving their general health via diet and exercise".

On that topic, IIRC Neil Young removed his music from spotify due to them platforming Rogans show during this period. I respected that because, unlike many activists, instead of simply demanding that someone else be censored or lose income he decided to sacrifice a stream of revenue himself out of principle.

Compare this to the example I often give of celebrities taking private jets to climate conferences to lecture the poors on how it is them who need to make sacrifices to save the planet.

Is there such a thing as ethical dealings under capitalism, anyway? If there isn't, why is grifting any different from what every business does or how they operate?

I have seen lines like this and I think they're a bit of a defeatist cop out. Let's assume that it's true that there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. Ethics are still not a black and white binary. Littering and mass murder are both unethical, but obviously to very different degrees. An individual or organisation can at least minimise the negative impact they have.

When buying a dozen eggs at a supermarket, all of those products have involved cruelty to animals in their production. However, by spending an extra dollar to get barn / free range eggs instead of caged, we can make a minor sacrifice in order to fund the less cruel option, sending a message to the corporations by voting with our wallets. The egg thing is probably a terrible example, but you get my drift.

 

[Malifice]

I think it's incredibly wrong when people knowingly and dishonestly push misinformation to benefit themselves at the expense of others. It's less evil when they push something that is incorrect but they genuinely believe in it and have no bad intent.

IMO Joe Rogan is an example of the latter. He platformed unscientific views during covid, but they were views that he seemingly genuinely believed and that he was not directly profiting from.

Leaving aside the AdSense revenue and dollars per view on his YouTube videos (and his antivaxx ones got literally tens of millions of combined views on Youtube alone), there is also this:

Spotify has reached a new deal with star podcaster Joe Rogan that will allow his hit show to be distributed broadly.

Rogan’s fresh deal—estimated to be worth as much as $250 million over its multiyear term, according to people familiar with the matter—involves an upfront minimum guarantee, plus a revenue sharing agreement based on ad sales.

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/joe-rogan-podcast-spotify-deal-28eb5f74

These grifters make money.

I partly agree with you that the cooker seemed to actually believe the crap he was peddling, but he has an audience of 11 million people. He needs to be responsible when spruiking utter s**t, and not be platforming shitcampaigners like antisemites, conspiracy theorists and anti vaxxers, or promoting obvious misinformation.

Check your sources for *s sake.

MSM Journos are at least held to some standards of responsible and ethnical journalism. Freelance podcasters and the like are not. They just spruike whatever crap they want with whomever they want, with zero repercussions (beyond being cancelled by the platform).

In fact, the algorithm actively encourages them to spruike enraging bullshit like racism, conspiracy theories and politically charged comments, because that's where the money lies.

 

[demondavey]

The basic definition below

 

[demondavey]

We seem to have gone the online social commentary way first up. I am not really sure if that’s grifting. Or maybe it is? Online commentary and spread of misinformation is basically an industry. It’s opportunistic. People now generate revenue a different way, through revenue for marketing platforms. Social media has just evolved to minimise news content from broadsheets on the 7:50am train into town with personal space encroached whilst reading a page of news to snippets of content on an I phone screen, listening to influencers peddle ideas, and social commentators whip up frenzies.

Grifting to me implies it’s wrong but I’ll do it anyway. I am a thief etc. The question is that these people are either weaponising conspiracy theories deliberately (which should be a crime) or genuinely believe it which means that they aren’t grifting but have found an avenue to spread rubbish through their deluded views.

COVID must have made a lot of people a lot of money. I think these platforms are a dishonest way to make money. You’re just talking s**t. It’s not a job, but idiots go there and big corporations pay for exposure. Since COVID we’ve had a massive reemergence of so many issues of conspiracy, also fuelled heavily by the Trump presidency and his basic inability to accept his country was in an existential health crisis because his right wing disciples needed a cause.

I know he was a murderer, but Ted Kaczynski really hit on something when he said technology was going to be problematic. If the guy didn’t murder people he might have had more traction getting his point across, but he did and deserved his whack.