Want that college degree without that college education?
Does YouTube have a scam for you!
Welcome back to What’s Trending.
I’m Danielle Radford.
Several YouTubers are under fire this week after the BBC reported that they were being
paid to advertise Ukrainian-based website “EduBirdie.”
EduBirdie bills themselves as the “professional essay writing service for students who can’t
even.”
The website boasts that EduBirdie is a fast and reliable way for clients to get their
academic work done by professional academic writers.
Our simple process guarantees high quality and original work to clients, while also maintaining
confidentiality.
Man, I just like...
I feel like there used to be some kind of like cloak and dagger to cheating, not just
like a huge website, but this is 2018, so I guess all rules are off.
Several popular Youtubers were named in the BBC report, including Adam Saleh.
And if you’re wondering, like I kind of was, whether or not these YouTubers actually
knew what they were selling, or if they thought it was some sort of a tutoring program, this
video advertisement by vlogger Onision is probably going to clear up any of those doubts.
EduBirdie.com is a site where you can pay someone to write essays for you so you don't
have to write essays for school because as many of us know school is a gigantic joke
and you only stay in school so you can get a job later, not because the content at school
is actually relevant.
And according to a spokesman for the company, YouTube appears to be taking this very seriously.
"YouTube creators may include paid endorsements as part of their content only if the product
or service they are endorsing complies with our advertising policies.
We do not allow ads for essay writing and so paid promotions of these services will
be removed when we discover them.
We will be working with creators going forward so they better understand that in video promotions
must not promote dishonest activity."
Users on Twitter are reporting strikes or removal of videos that have advertisements
for EduBirdie.
@WitnessCole tweeted: “YouTube took down all my edubirdie videos *emojis*”.
@joshuasuarezYT posted this video explaining an email he received from Youtube about the
situation.
YouTube is changing their policy.
I have a list of videos here in the corner that I'm like covering my hand over, but basically
if you did EduBirdie shout-outs for that company, then you will get strikes on your channel
if you do not remove the videos now.
Just a heads up.
He included the caption: "For everyone who did edubirdie shoutouts.
You will get each video striked for each video if you don’t remove the video.
Go remove your videos.
I care about my community and don’t want to see anyone get dropped.
Love you all.
God bless."
In addition to being morally iffy at best, it turns out, EduBirdie isn't very good?
As part of its investigation, the BBC ordered two essays from the service.
The GCSE essay was given a C or 5/6 and the university assignment 60%.
Not quite the guaranteed A+ grade promised by EduBirdie.
It's like the Lyft of essays.
So you can sign on to be someone there...
they're like oh well you know we have academics and we have whatever, whatever.
You can sign on to be a person that does essays and I don't know how well they're necessarily
vetting anyone who tries to sign on?
Back over on twitter, many users have been commenting on the situation.
@simplySuvo writes: The #Edubirdie story highlights the more serious issue that kids think that
they can just get famous and make a living off YouTube without trying at school.
It normalises cheating & laziness and I bet most YouTube stars who promote the service
don't have many GCSE's.
Wow, @ me though.
But showing that clearly the ads worked, @_Dylan87 responded to a tweet from a YouTuber who advertised
the site with: “Bro I’ve probably spent $1000 on edubirdie since watching you.
graduating college tho so”.
@wroetoshaw (that's fine) asks: "Why didn’t edubirdie exist when I was in school I’m
fuming".
Well, dude whose name I can't say...
it did.
Kind of.
Essay cheating has been around for as long as teachers have been forcing students to
write essays.
I think the current controversy is more related to how blatant the marketing is and that they're
marketing to such a young audience on YouTube.
Some of the YouTubers who were doing this, who were not named because they were minors,
were like 12 and 15 years old.
Also, like back in the day cheating on an essay used to be you going to like you know
your local friendly nerd theater major and having her write you a psych paper and getting
you a very solid B+ because she really needed weed money.
Whereas EduBirdie is clearly a big company ran by I'm assuming a bunch of grown ass folks
that could possibly be exploiting younger people with really bad product?
Do you feel like EduBirdie is taking advantage of YouTube’s young audience, or is this
another case of the “oh but what about the children?”
style reporting, like the condom challenge or jenkem?
Ha, remember jenkem?
Remember when like one of our biggest problems was worrying about if kids were inhaling poop
water?
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