I don’t think this is a waste of time. I have voiced my criticisms of Proton directly to them. We’ve had a lot of exchanges over the years. Most of the criticism I’ve voiced to them, they are not willing to consider changing, which is partly why I think it is important to voice them publicly. I’ve had the same experience with other companies. It is not unique to Proton.
Yes, I did. As I said, I was always going to share this video the moment I saw it because I thought it was interesting. Originally, I was leaning to post it in the comment section about PG’s article on protecting the privacy of others. But as I was preparing to share the video, hours after I had first seen it, I noticed it was an ad for Proton’s new child username feature, which warrants sharing it in comment section about that.
What made me also dedicate an original post to it is the apparent lack of transparency which I don’t deny, could be a genuine mistake, but still worthy of discussion, IMHO.
No, it doesn’t.
Proton’s name is NOT visible in the title.
You have to click on it to see it in the description pop-up window.
This is the title of the video:
Posting your kids publicly online is the same as leaving them at a gas station!! #proton
It is way too long for anyone to see the Proton hashtag. I did not see it, which is why I wrongly assumed it was not in the title.
Most people won’t see it. Most people also won’t click on the title, because most people don’t click on the titles of YouTube Shorts.
I only clicked on it because I was planning to share the video, and bookmarked it in Raindrop for later. As I was bookmarking it in Raindrop, I wanted to add tags, including not just the name of the channel (Subway Takes), but the name of the host (Kareem Rhama), and if it was available, the name of the guest (still unknown). This kind of information usually appears in titles, which is why I clicked.
I’m not offended by the presentation of this video. By not making it clear on YouTube that it is a sponsorded video, its audience is being misled. I genuinely like video. I support its message. I’m just a bit bummed it’s a sponsored ad, which is not an issue. The issue is that its presentation is botched and misleading because someone probably made a mistake.
Assuming that we both want this ad to be effective by driving people who watched it to learn about Proton, wouldn’t it be fair to say that its paratext is a failure? That the ad failed at its goal?
PS: I just recently learned about the word “paratext”, courtesy of Nerdwriter, and couldn’t resist this perfect opportunity to use it for the first time. I hope I didn’ use it wrong. 