What do Microsoft and the Chinese government have in common?

In the depths of the Chinese internet there lurks a strange beast that flits from forum to forum, Weibo to Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) and is only noticed by its trail of spurious comments.

This creature is commonly known as a Wu Mao (五毛) and is a commenter paid to support whichever entity has the cash to support it. Wu Mao were initially government supporters but it is now common for companies to hire them in order to built their reputation or to assassinate the reputation of others. If you thought such abhorrent behaviour was only the domain of the Chinese then you were wrong.

Microsoft has recently been caught employing its own version of the Wu Mao, albeit using animation distributor Machinima and Youtube users instead of desperate teenagers in internet cafes. The deal is disclosed in this document but can be summarised neatly in this deleted tweet from an overly enthusiastic Machinima employee:

Oops…

The deal basically promises that every Machinima affiliated Youtuber who posts a video which uses Xbox One footage, supports Xbox One and plants a nice big kiss on Microsoft’s buttocks will receive $3 for every 1,000 views.

However you chose to look at this, it is corruption.

In my opinion, this type of stealth advertising is totally unacceptable, and Microsoft should be ashamed of using such ugly methods to push sales. More than that, these methods may in fact be in violation of Federal Trade Commision guidelines, potentially putting Microsoft in legal hot water. What’s more Machinima, a company famous for distributing excellent game-based content like Red vs Blue should have known better than to use such underhanded tactics to make a quick buck.

The same goes for the people who made content for the promise of ill-gotten gains. We rely on content creators to maintain certain standard of morality and for me it’s a depressing thing to see how easily people can be corrupted for the promise of a few dollars.

It can be argued that Youtubers are not journalists, that they don’t need to be held accountable for any breaches of integrity and that they basically have free reign to do whatever the hell they like but that’s just nonsense. If someone is paying you to say something and simultaneously telling you not to mention that you are being paid (as it states in the contract) then you are doing something wrong. By all means make advertisement and please support any content you choose, but if they are paying you to do so you need to fess up or we are listening to you under false pretenses. Sure there’s no law against what the Youtubers have done but that doesn’t make it right.

At least in China I understand why people take these jobs. The economy here is such that you do what work you can to make ends meet. But you guys on Youtube are not in this situation, your decisions were based on greed and that’s just messed up!

(Images: Banner)