Safe Threads, YouTube Doctors, & Greenwashing
5 in 5 - Brave & Heart HeartBeat #173 ❤️
This week we’re looking at the (over) safe space that is Threads, how you can go to the doctor via YouTube, will your friends hate you if you use AI to talk to them, and why are fossil fuels turning to Instagram?
Plus, a very important lesson on how to NOT be passive aggressive in the workplace.
Let's get into it.
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#1 - Threads Is a Safe Space… A Little Too Safe
Threads have introduced a “temporary” measure blocking searches for anything naughty, and we mean really ANYTHING. The search function simply won’t provide results for any searches for keywords that “may show potentially sensitive content”.
Mosseri, the poster boy heading Threads along with Instagram, said that the company was trying to learn from their mistake, and want to “bias towards being careful”. Well, there’s careful and then there’s church camp.
Sure, Instagram search was criticized for leading to a lot of misinformation, and the ability to lead users down a rabbit hole when it comes to conspiracy theories – especially when searching for anything in the realms of “vaccine” or “5G” brought you conspiracy prone anti-vax results in all the top searches.
But from there to disable all searches for potentially sensitive keywords is an aggressive leap, that shows fear that the app could get out of their control.
You will get no results if you search for “marijuana”, “murder” or “opiod”, and if you search “thin” or “skinny” Threads will kindly suggest you get help because the search suggests you have body image issues. Yes, really.
While it may be more appealing to advertisers than a platform like X where everyone is simply going crazy, if they continue to be so “vanilla”, as they’ve been called, there won’t be that many people to advertise to.
As far as rivalling what Twitter used to be, the Bloomberg tech newsletter aptly noted that movements such as #MeToo would never have gotten off the ground on Threads, as if the content mentions the key words “sexual assault” , you ain’t finding it in the search.
We hate to mention the C word (censorship) but Elon Musk certainly will be.
#2 - Going To The Doctor Via YouTube
Another move in the fight against disinformation, YouTube are taking a different approach to backlash faced after the spread of false information about health in videos hosted on their platform, by giving verification to actual health workers posting health content.
Along with everyone else in the social media sphere, YouTube got a lot of flack back during the Covid boom for videos spreading misinformation – research shows that 11% of YouTube’s most viewed videos about the Covid-19 vaccine directly contradicted the World Health Organisation.
Like, for example, that it’ll make your arm fall off, or make you spontaneously grow two heads, OR that it’s a microchip that lets the government track you – that sort of totally normal stuff.
Now, when you search for anything health related, the top search results will be a "health shelf" - a list of videos explicitly labelled to be from health sources. And these labels are not easy to get.
Vishaal Virani, the leader for health content at YouTube, says that healthcare professionals are validated through a multi-step process in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the NHS, and other stakeholder such as the Royal College of Nursing. They must have an active medical license to be verified, and cannot have posted any past videos which contain disinformation.
Virani noted that the changes have been necessary following a huge uptake in health content being viewed on YouTube, which has become, in his words, a place to go for health information “whether we like it or not”.
#3 - How To Win Friends and Influence People? Not AI
While some companies are telling us that AI can write anything – from advertising copy to romantic comedies – a new research paper shows that personal correspondence like letters and texts get “profoundly negative reactions” from friends and colleagues.
In the study, 208 people were asked to reach out to a fictional “good friend” called Taylor needing emotional support, and then rate their reply. When the fictional Taylor gave an AI-assisted response, the friends recorded having much lower opinions about Taylor, and were much less likely to agree that Taylor meets their needs as a close friend, or likes them as a close friend.
HOWEVER, the big caveat here is that the participants reacted this way when they were told that Taylor used AI to reply to them.
The study doesn’t say whether the participants reacted more negatively to AI responses before finding that out. So, what they were actually reacting badly to was the idea that their friend used AI to help them be a friend – and yeah, fair enough.
This is apparently due to something called the “investment model and equity theory” which is when someone thinks the other person is putting in less effort into a relationship than they are, leading to uncertainty and less satisfaction with the relationship.
So basically, we reckon if your friends don’t know you’re using AI to help them with their personal problems, write an apology for doing something terrible, or even for writing their eulogy (which is apparently something that AI can do nowadays) – it won’t make a difference.
#4 - Passive Aggressive Office Behaviour
Because apparently some of you just can’t help it, we found you a definitive list of passive aggressive behaviour in the workplace, why it’s so bad, and what to do instead when you feel the need creeping up on you, courtesy of Welcome To The Jungle.
“Per my last email” – the classic pass-agg way to say not only I’ve already said this, but also you clearly didn’t read it, you’re completely incompetent and I hate you. Apparently the best way to avoid doing this is simply to bite your tongue, remember that you never know what’s going on in someone’s life and say it in a nicer way. Hard sometimes, we know.
CCing the boss without warning is also a pretty passive aggressive move. Welcome To The Jungle suggest at least bringing it up to the colleague in question by suggesting that maybe you could ask the boss for help on a certain subject. Although usually that subject is trying to make them look stupid, or covering yourself…
According to email etiquette, saying “thank you in advance” is bad manners. Now this one comes as news to us, it seems it can come across like you’re bossing them around – like they’ll obviously do what they’re asking, no question asked. Apparently, it might be better to first ask them if they could take time out to do said thing, rather than clicking your fingers at them via email.
And lastly, of course, emailing last thing on Friday and following up first thing on Monday. Weekend hours are not working hours. If you emailed Friday at 5pm and you’re following up Monday at 9:15, you didn’t email them two days ago – you emailed them fifteen minutes ago.
#5 - Greenwashing Meets Influencer Marketing
Experts warn that there may be a new wave of misinformation coming at us via influencers on the subject of fossil fuels, as they try and get down with the kids.
According to leaked internal documents from BP, oil and gas firms are implementing an influencer marketing strategy in order to become “relatable, passionate and authentic” to “win the trust of the younger generations”.
An investigation by DeSmog, an activist journalism site founded in 2006 to, in their own words, “clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science and solutions to climate change”, show that Shell have put the most money into influencer marketing.
Agencies are also noting the potential uptick in fossil fuel influencer marketing, with PR agency Big Little London stating that they would definitely think carefully about hiring influencers for such campaigns, noting that “highly regulated” sectors like alcohol and gambling ads often meet with bigger pushback from an influencer audience.
Greenwashing via influencer already exists, with ex Love Island contestant turned content creator who focuses on the climate impact of fast fashion saying that he turns down a lot of work with fast fashion clients who want to use his position as an environmentally concious influencer. He was famously the first Love Island contestant to turn down free clothes, which is very out of habit for an ITV-made influencer…
You heard it here first, be on the lookout for greenwashing from oil companies…
Brave & Heart over and out.
Bonus
Workplace Mushrooms
Are psychedelics becoming mainstream?
Apparently Elon Musk does it, and taking “shrooms” at work makes you more creative and more open minded.
It might be going mainstream…
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