In CNN’s article by William Worrall titled, ” Edfluence or That Time Jake Paul Scammed His Underage Followers” the influencer is described as a “controversial figure”. Worrall explains that although Jake Paul has somehow accrued more than 20 millions subscribers on YouTube and 13.1m followers on Instagram, he is widely hated by much of the community. Why is this? He has recently been exposed for exploiting children by pushing merchandise and urging the kids to “steal their mom’s credit card”. Paul also has multiple videos that show him lighting his pool on fire and putting himself, his friends and his neighbors into harms way.
Recently, Jake Paul has decided he is going to share exactly how he got 20 million subscribers on YouTube by creating Edufluence, a service that will educate the “next generation of social media influencers” for just $7. The first issue to come about with this new service was that after you paid the $7 you were then asked to pay $57 more before you log in. But, lying about the price of the service was just the beginning. Worrall explains, “If you search YouTube for ‘Edfluence’, you’ll find a lot of people’s videos. Lots of those who bought the service were really trying to make a social media career. Around a year after he started the course, the website was closed down. Meaning that if you paid your $64 to get access, you’ve essentially now paid for nothing. The website now just leads to a dead page.”
(Pro) I believe that this was meant to be a good thing. Many influencers branch off from social media and create new businesses to grow their brand and create a new wave of income. I also believe that Jake Pauls’ audience would have been super into this idea and would have purchased the service.
(Con) Unfortunately, this was just another Jake Paul scam for money. Paul is a perfect example of a social media influencer that abuses the power and trust. He takes advantage of his young audience and makes an estimated $15.5 million dollars a year doing it.
The ethical solution to this issue would be YouTube stepping. I am guessing they haven’t done so because they make quite a bit of money from Paul’s views and AdSense. I am surprised the Paul brothers have not been kicked of the platform, but it is definitely the right thing to do.
Connection to Media Ethics: Issues and Cases Ninth Edition by Philip Patterson, Lee Wilkins and Chad Painter: In chapter 7, “Media Economics” the social responsibly theory of the press is discussed. I believe this ties directly to the ethical dilemmas Jake Paul faces. Even though Jake Paul is not a member of the press perse, however, he is a part of modern mass media and I do believe his audience would still like to be satisfied by socially responsible content. Some of the content Jake Paul posts on social media is destructive and does not provide his audience with full access to a day’s intelligence, goal or values of society, nor does he paint a representative picture of groups in our society. His content is deceitful and seen as a dangerous to young audiences.
Media, Ethics and Society Blog 