Veritasium's new video on Jumping Spiders is having its sponsor Better Help on blast in the top comments. Should we hold content creators to account?

A channel absolutely should be held accountable for the sponsors they accept. Advertisements from YouTube are mostly outside channel owners control, but sponsors are not.

I don't support channels with unethical sponsors. It can be tough sometimes.

Mark Rober was a big disappointment too. he made a pretty weird video about autism, using the fact that his son is autistic as like qualification for him to talk about it. autistic folks tried to talk to him about the problematic nature of the video in the comments, and he just blocked them. plus, he partnered with NXT for Autism, which does work with Autism Speaks, which is genuinely a hate group that's trying to exterminate autism, and, last I checked, had no autistic people on the board.

Veritasium is YouTube propaganda. It's well documented - Derek takes sponsor money and gets people killed in the process. I blocked Derek on all platforms the day Tom put this documentary video out.

Google got rid of the dislike count on videos for a reason, holding content creators accountable is absolutely what should be done. It's horseshit to think that content creators shouldn't be accountable for the sponsorships they take.

I’m out of the loop, what did Better Help do?

Am I just old, even by internet standards? Because we've been here before. Better Help was blasted on the internet several years ago for their shady business practices. Several major YouTubers published "make good" videos about it, because of how bad the service was. Better Help was giving YouTubers and podcasters a shitload of money to promote their product, and in their terms they explicitly stated that they did not verify the credentials of their "therapists" and that it was on you to do that.

Veratasium had some similar issue a few years ago too, didn't he?

Philip de Franco did a better help sponsor and his community went up in arms about it. now he doesn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. surprised more communities don't care about it

pretty sure his video about Charmin flushable wipes being the only actually flushable wipes on the planet was bullshit

Don't let anybody tell you you can't consume or not consume whatever content you feel like. Theres an uptick in this weird attitude of "you're an asshole/fascist/whatever trying to cancel everyone" if you decide to stop watching someone or buying a product. Its bullshit, you don't owe anybody jack.

You're one person. Either you bailing won't matter, or a bunch of people bail and they learn their lesson. Either way you don't have to put up with a damn thing you don't want to. 🤷

Wow, those comments are a dumpster fire.

Not sure what Derek 's best response might be. I'm thinking that this video will likely be taken down and replaced by one without a sponsor.

To some degree, certainly! If at some point it comes out that a certain sponsor is just total shit, a content creator can be made aware of that. Although, with all these things, it is not always as easy to just drop a sponsor i suppose, there is always contracts involved and all of that. So not expecting a creator to be able to drop a sponsor all of a sudden.

I'm curious, what would happen if I, as a creator, had been contacted by a sponsor and then if the sponsor was shady, decided to not only say no to the contract, but also rag on them in the video where the sponsor would have been shilled?

It's likely they signed a contract with them before the (second) controversy, I feel like a better way to do this is to see if they continue with the shitty sponsors

But they should be held accountable for this kind of stuff

I do that kind of thing, yes. Although I usually find it so distasteful, that I lose interest in watching other videos anyways.

But yeah, especially when it's a channel making educational content, there's a chance that some viewers take the sponsored section as general educational content (no matter, whether that's because they're gullible, young or did not pay attention when the sponsor segway happened).

There's also various tech channels which recommend products that are objectively worse than the alternatives, or even exert malware-like behaviour. Those also immediately lose any and all respect from me.

Obviously, if it was a genuinely good product, it wouldn't need the sponsorship deal for people to make videos about it. So, I do understand the struggle.
But everyone wanting to make a living off of media has that struggle. If I artificially inflate the view numbers of one media creator, the others receive less sponsorship money.

Veritasium endorsed a known racketeer and as a consequence some portion of their audience is now going to be defrauded in an economy where there's not a lot of room for that especially among those in need of therapy. Watching Veritasium videos causes the channel to have greater exposure, increasing the risk to the general population if engaged with by anyone. Therefore, engaging with this channel in any way is harmful to others.

At least consider it. It will make shady sponsors less valuable and more genuine sponsors more valuable.

They absolutely deserve to be blasted in the comments for a bad sponsor. It will make people reconsider their viewing decisions. If the video itself also wasn't great, don't be afraid to give it a big fat dislike, especially if you have the return YouTube dislike extension.

Additionally, if there are too many ads and sponsors, make your voice heard in the comments, and the creator might be sympathetic. I certainly am when I'm on the receiving end of a comment like that on my channel.

I made sure to dislike the moment this sponsorship came up and closed the video. With analytics they should see the connection.

I don't watch any video that's sponsored by Ground News, and I complain in the comments

Dr becky (atrology channel) also did a few sponsorships with them and got lots of unhappy comments under those videos. Not sure if she still sticks with them or no. Aaaaaaaand I just checked her last video from 7 hours ago and she still gets sponsorships from them. Top comments are asking her to stop accepting those sponsorships pointing out their doings.

Sponsor block x new pipe and its not a problem

What’s shady about Better Help?

I do think we should normalize scrutinizing the sponsors for their shittiness, but not necessarily the content creator. They are just trying to pay the bills, and aren't going to be aware of the problems with every company out there (though nearly every product that uses YouTubers for marketing is a scam in some way or other)

No. It's their channel and they can do whatever they want, just as how you can handle yourself however you want. Just do as you've done and remove yourself from something that conflicts with your opinion and everyone's happy. Life is often that simple