Can we help protect the YouTube / TikTok generation, or is it not worth trying?

DireEmblem

Just a thought, but there are a lot of click bait videos out there, and there have been for some time now.

Now financial markets are clearly regulated, but these bloggers are relatively free and unregulated to say what they want.  There is nothing wrong with free speech, but bloggers also have the power to delete comments on their posts as well.  This is fine as long as the comments are, lets politely put 'off topic', but this removes free speech, and it seems there is more protection for the bloggers, than the people that watch them.

There are rules for Financial Advisors and such, but can we ever educate people to not believe bad advice, take mis informed opinions as fact, or do we need to let people make mistakes and learn from them?

MaxiRobriguez

The majority of people who fall victim to scams, click bait and, fake news and questionable investments are older people, not younger people. 

El_Torro

My first thought is that financial responsibility and how to invest could be taught in schools. Of course there are a lot of key life skills which currently aren't taught in schools, and there's only so much responsibility we can pile on to the schooling system. 

Arguably it could be said that it's better for young people to learn by doing (doing it wrong in this case) so that they don't fall in to the same trap when they're about to retire and have a lot more money at their disposal to lose.

Personally I think that freedom of information and free speech are key here. Sometimes that means that people are given inadequate (or sometimes just plain wrong) information. Individuals need to accept responsibility for their own actions too though, not just jump straight into something without looking at conflicting views first and deciding what is the right course of action.

Thrugelmir

People will believe what they wish to believe. It's the loss of handed down wisdom from ones peers in the formative years that's the real issue. Culture is such these days that much of what was regarded as common sense has been lost. The world is full of sharks. Always has been always be. 

intgomo

The TikTok and YouTube generations are arguably different generations given the age of the latter.  That said, these platforms attract huge volumes of followers/viewers so, whilst it's easy to be hood-winked, there's also plenty of folk around who know better and can call out the hood-winkers. Having the ability to delete comments etc. is one trick but, with every tactic there's a counter-tactic (e.g. create another video calling out the hood-winkers).

Older generations (and I include myself in that category) can get disenfranchised with new social media and the apparent disregard with which younger generations especially seem to be entranced by it but I've found many excellent sources of well-researched education on these platforms.  Recent examples include personal finance, music theory and climate change science but there are clearly thousands more.

To Thrugelmir's point above about handed-down wisdom in particular, vehicles such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. allow bloggers to impart their "wisdom" with a much wider reach than would have been possible 20 or 30 years ago.  Yes, there will be sharks and, more innocently, ill-informed views, but every innovation finds its balance eventually because the world also contains many honest and well-intentioned helpers.  There's also a few experts in there I find :-)

Sebo027

Thrugelmir said:

People will believe what they wish to believe. It's the loss of handed down wisdom from ones peers in the formative years that's the real issue. Culture is such these days that much of what was regarded as common sense has been lost. The world is full of sharks. Always has been always be. 

I agree with this - one major problem is that youngsters are handed smart phones the second they are capable of holding them. That online exposure influences those formative years, the consequences of which we don't fully understand yet. 

Alexland

MaxiRobriguez said:

The majority of people who fall victim to scams, click bait and, fake news and questionable investments are older people, not younger people. 

Seems to be a myth - plenty of news articles published in recent months using data collected by the FBI, Barclays, Microsoft, etc to suggest that young adults are more likely to fall for scams. I have a few favourite YouTube channels and see enough scammy adverts that it makes me feel bad for the people getting poorer from these rubbish schemes. It ultimately reflects badly on Google for allowing the adverts to be placed but I guess while it goes under the political radar they don't really care.

gatters

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p09pym51 Instatraders

Showing documentaries like this in school might help. It highlights the MLM/referral aspect and some of the nonsense around “forex traders” on social media. 

K_S

MaxiRobriguez said:

The majority of people who fall victim to scams, click bait and, fake news and questionable investments are older people, not younger people. 

@MaxiRobriguez Research does appear to corroborate that to some extent, along with a correlation to education levels. The field levels out a bit when it comes to sharing misinformation though.

Malthusian

How to help someone in an MLM

The above is aimed at people who want to help someone in a pyramid scheme but it applies to pretty much any financial "get-rich-quick" scam whether pyramid, Ponzi or Nigerian Prince.

This is distinct from a "push payment" fraud where the mark does not want to get rich quick but is motivated by the fear of losing existing money or going to jail (fake HMRC fines). These are much less of a general social problem for us to agonise over as the banks are now usually liable for losses (in the absence of negligence). Which means the responsibility for educating consumers has been shifted onto the banks as well, as they now have the most interest in making consumers less vulnerable to scams, so they can limit their losses.

There are rules for Financial Advisors and such, but can we ever educate people to not believe bad advice, take mis informed opinions as fact, or do we need to let people make mistakes and learn from them?

Yep. Millions of kids across the country are told repeatedly by their parents, friends, teachers and other authority figures not to invest in get rich quick schemes or hand over their money just because they got a text telling them to. Most of the time it works. Only a small minority fall for scams and of those who do, the genuinely blameless are usually refunded. (Get-rich-quick victims are, quite rightly, much less likely to be.) Rejoice.

Can we ever educate everyone? Nope. You can't save the world.

MaxiRobriguez

Alexland said:

MaxiRobriguez said:

The majority of people who fall victim to scams, click bait and, fake news and questionable investments are older people, not younger people. 

Seems to be a myth - plenty of news articles published in recent months using data collected by the FBI, Barclays, Microsoft, etc to suggest that young adults are more likely to fall for scams. I have a few favourite YouTube channels and see enough scammy adverts that it makes me feel bad for the people getting poorer from these rubbish schemes. It ultimately reflects badly on Google for allowing the adverts to be placed but I guess while it goes under the political radar they don't really care.

Interesting - not see that.

FWIW I wasn't trying to start a generational argument, just felt the OP's "is it worth even saving the young generation" was particularly condescending. Firstly, unless you're an absolute douchebag then every generation should have their needs considered, and secondly many young people are more educated than their elders and don't need to be taught how to suck eggs.

There's also some really good Youtube channels that do a better and less emotive job of explaining various investing concepts than mainstream sources do. Ben Felix is my favourite, but Pensioncraft comes close and not far behind them James Shack and Joseph Carlson also do a decent job.