Truth & Transparency: The Ethics of Being a Creator
Are creators being fully transparent when it comes to collaborations? Here are a few ways to recognize if you follow a creator you can trust.
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Creating content online, as either a hobby or a career, comes with a fair share of freedom. People are mostly free to post what they want on the internet, where, when and how they please.
This freedom can lead to the expression of creativity and the exchange of ideas within online communities. However, if placed in the wrong hands, it can conversely lead to a slew of bad things. Misinformation, biases, discrimination, overall harmful content — the things that can run rampant on dark sides of the internet are limitless.
Fortunately, things like in-app community guidelines, social media policies and the option to report harmful posts exist to keep online content accurate, just and safe. However, these measures aren’t cut and dried, and it’s often up to individual internet users to decide and grapple with the ethics of what they post.
When people are creating content as a career, even more ethics come into question. Many creators have mostly self-governed platforms, as in, they are their own boss. This means ethical considerations are entirely up to them.
Those who make money off of their content can not exist, or at least succeed, without their followers. This relationship is two-sided, with the creator informing about brands, products or services, and their followers in turn engaging with this content.
Within some online profiles, this is an authentic exchange of information. Many creators value their audiences enough to practice transparency with them. However, some creators may view these opportunities as more of a financial exchange, loosening their ethical standards.
Like any online personality, creators are responsible for sharing sound content with their followers. However, when making money off of the people who support you, transparency, truth and authenticity with your audience become increasingly crucial, or perhaps increasingly difficult to prioritize in some cases.
For example, imagine a creator is approached by a brand to share a sponsored video with their followers, explaining how much they love the brand’s product. This creator, however, has never even used this product before, let alone enjoyed it.
The creator then has two options: take up the brand deal and deceptively tell their followers they’ll love the product as much as they have, or choose the truth and lose the potential economic gain.
This is exactly the crossroads that TikTok creator Taryn Lamb (@therealtarnanlamb) once found herself at. On April 30, she shared a “brand deal story time” with her nearly 300,000 followers, and through which, she took the ethical high road.
In the video, Lamb explains a paid collaboration she was offered by a hair care brand. The brand asked her to post a TikTok explaining how its product transformed her hair for the better. She, however, was taken aback by this proposal, as she had never even used the product before, and doing as the brand instructed would be dishonest to her supporters. So, Lamb declined the collaboration, opted out of the financial offer and shared this story on her profile.
It’s also important for creators to simply disclose when one of their posts is a paid collaboration. As a follower, it can be hard to discern when a creator is posting about a product they truly believe in or one they are paid to believe in. Also, it can be far more fulfilling to engage with a creator who is motivated by personal interest rather than money.
Ethical considerations differ depending on the creator. Some creators are incredibly attuned to the messaging of their content, while others take a more laid back approach. Factors like privacy, mental health or sustainability may be of the utmost importance to some people, always factoring into the content they create. Take YouTuber Shelby Orme (@Shelbizleee) as an example, who posts videos sharing strictly environmentally-friendly information and has fostered a subscriber base passionate about sustainability.
As a social media user, it can be difficult to tell authentic content apart from what’s a sham. Unfortunately, questions of ethics are sometimes too personalized to fit neatly within an app’s community guidelines. However, you can take comfort in the fact that truthful creators do exist online. So, consume content with caution, and fill your feed with creators you trust.
Best,
Fiona for the Don’t Count Us Out Yet Team