Is it? Is it also wrong that they so far weren't labeled as [copy-pasted], and/or [outsourced to influencer management agency], and/or [not by ${influencer name}]? YouTube influencers and vloggers are brands, not people; they go big enough, they start outsourcing this stuff, which to my mind is just like "AI slop", except produced by protein parrot instead of silicon one.

Nah, first and foremost, the comment page and the video itself should start with Surgeon General's warning: "You're watching a long-form, semi-interactive ad. None of this is authentic, and none of it is meant to do anything good or nice for you."

(And perhaps also: "You're probably better of going for a smoke instead of consuming this.")

A lot of it is labeled as "you are talking to me personally".

It is akin to a movie stating "a true story" - some liberties may be taken but if the protagonist becomes world president then travels to mars and becomes king of the martians. I am going to start looking for citations.

It sounds like we agree that misleading interaction should be labelled as such, you just think it's already happening and wonder why the uproar now.

> Is it also wrong that they so far weren't labeled as [copy-pasted], and/or [outsourced to influencer management agency], and/or [not by ${influencer name}]?

IMO, yes. Copy-pased might be accepteable if it is the author himself doing the selection of what to copy and paste.

If the main value of the comments is interacting with the person in question then anything less is fraud. If authenticity doesn't matter then the label won't impact the desired effect.

Should people know that these interactions have never been genuine? Yes. Is that an excuse for scamming people? Absolutely not.