Poland's Central Bank Accused of Paying YouTubers To Make Videos That Attack the Legitimacy of Cryptocurrencies (businessinsider.com)

Poland's central bank has been accused of hiring YouTubers to "start a smear campaign" against cryptocurrencies in the country, Business Insider reports. From the story: According to Business Insider Poland, the Narodowy Bank Polski spent around 91,000 zloty ($27,300) on a marketing campaign designed to attack the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies. The money was spent on platforms including Google and Facebook, but was also used to pay a Polish Youtube partner network called Gamellon. The Gamellon network reportedly represents many of Poland's top YouTubers, including popular prankster Marcin Dubiel. In December, Dubiel published a video titled "STRACILEM WSZYSTKIE PIENIADZE?!" -- which loosely translates as "I LOST ALL MY MONEY?!" In the satirical video, Dubiel invests all his money in a fake cryptocurrency called Dubielcoin, gets rich, but then sees its value plunge and loses everything. It has racked up over 500,000 views.

Comments

This is common pattern in Poland and elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

In Poland you have right-wing nationalist government who won elections thanks to such massive campaigns.

They have 20% support but have majority in the parliament thanks to smearing everyone else with lies and fake news and populistic promises.

Similar things are tried in many other countries - often campaigns are directly controlled from Kremlin.

Sounds like a public service announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

It really sounds like the Central Bank is doing their job and attempting to educate the public about the dangers of speculative investing, in a rather creative way. In times past, there would have just been a television advertisement buy or something.

I don't see the problem here at all, especially for a fairly reasonable fee.

Re:But it's true

[war4peace]

There are aspects that make or break this thing.

You're saying "hey, it's true, what's the fuss?" - well, Poland is in the EU, and the EU has strict regulations around paid advertising.
Any advertising that's paid for MUST explicitly be identified as such.

For example, I could, as a Youtuber, make a video exactly like the one discussed in TFS and not be paid by anyone. I could express my own opinion, using my own resources (time, money) and monetize the content, earn money out of it, form opinions in my followers, etc. That's fine.
Similarly, I, the Youtuber, could be paid by a bank to make a similar video, and it's also fine as long as I explicitly mention in my video that it's advertising paid for by the bank, with the bank's name and everything.

I am not allowed to make a video, be paid by the bank, and not mention that anywhere.

Not sure which was the case because TFS is paywalled and I am not turning my adblocker off for that site.