*24.06.07 Trolls Don't Check Their Own Sources

Link to video:

v4z141i-trolls-dont-check-their-own-sources.html

Script:

Welcome back to my channel. Before getting into the main topic, let me just mention that I'm preparing for other outlets. Nothing to see yet, but I wanted to let you know now so you can, if you wish, go ahead and save the links or sign up to follow me.

For starters, I now have a channel on X - formerly known as twitter. I'll put a link in the description, but you should be able to just go to X and search for "Reality Check Files" to find it.

I haven't decided yet whether or not to use it as just another place to post the same videos or to use it to talk about some things in my videos just using written comments and maybe including a link to the corresponding video here. I have other things in mind, partly to deal with the need of weak men who have a need to censor. Like I've had a domain for a while which I might use to cover things I want to address as well. Maybe I'll even do a podcast!

But one step at a time. So I welcome you to preemptively follow my account on X.

Now, on to the meat of this video.

If someone is going to use a third party's video to attack someone else, shouldn't they at least check what is in that third party's video? I've already shown a vlogger who did something similar when he said it didn't matter if his own source admitted to lying!

The troll in this example isn't much better!

A vlogger named Jay Hidoshi attacked The Filipina Pea, basing his attack on a video by Philly In The Philippines. Well, sort of, as you will see. Let's start with what Hidoshi said:

"Philly In The Philippines caught my eye with his thumbnail referring to Filipina Pea as a scammer."

Note he only refers to the thumbnail, so let's talk about that. The thumbnail only showed an image of Pea with the words, "Filipina Female YouTubers, Are They Honest Or Are They Scammers. Don't Be A Sucka."

I can certainly understand Hidoshi's assumption that it was going to be critical of Pea, but there are two serious problems. One is that in his entire video, Philly didn't make a single criticism of Pea. He did make criticisms of other Filipinas in a generic form - some of which were really silly criticisms - but nothing about Pea.

Second, Philly did mention Pea a number of times but only to say she was doing things right! Which, to me, isn't exactly a criticism!

Let's look at some of Philly's comments about Pea's channel:

"Let me give you a perfect example of a YouTube channel, right now, that's out there, who's a Filipino and they are doing an amazing job."

"The Filipina Pea, she puts good points out there. She puts good, she's got great subject matter. Pleasant, speaks good English, great thumbnails."

"But this is a perfect example. The Filipina Pea. Perfect example of somebody, a Filipino YouTuber, who is doing it right."

So while Philly's subject may be Filipina scammers on YouTube, he plainly was contrasting them with The Filipina Pea, who he said is doing things the right way.

Yet Hidoshi says he supports Philly's criticisms of Pea! These are Jay's words:

"I support Philly in the Philippines for criticizing the Filipina Pea vlog."

Clearly Hidoshi never watched the video, which is inexcusable if he's using it to attack someone! But it allows me to talk about something newspapers do to create false assumptions too. 

You see, the thumbnail and text essentially did the same tactic newspapers use. They put headlines at the top of the fold so they are seen by everyone passing one of those newspaper dispensing machines or on display in a store. Many people don't buy the paper, but they all see those large headlines at the top of the page.

This lets the newspaper send some biased, misleading messages, knowing that most people will never read the full article which could be quite different than what those headlines imply!

That's what happened with Philly's thumbnail. People see the thumbnail who never watch the video and assume he called Pea a scammer.

Since Philly's comments in the video were positive about Pea, I'll assume he wasn't trying to create that confusion, but that was still the result for many.

In fact, Hidoshi spread the false description on 3 of his videos!

And as always, trolls just make up nutty assumptions on the spot! Like this one from Hidoshi:

"I think Filipina Pea is living in Cebu."

Not quite. She did visit Cebu for a short time, doing some videos, but she does not live there. And this weird statement:

"It was obvious to me that Filipina Pea and her team had a business plan."

First, at the time of his video, Pea had no team other than someone to hold the camera when necessary. That was often just someone she ran into on her trips. She does have someone now who does work for her, especially for this purpose, but back then she didn't even have that.

And what is this stuff about having a "business plan"? Doesn't sound like he means it as a compliment. An intelligent person, trying to make a living, is pretty smart to actually have a plan. Besides, Pea studied business in college.

With comments like Hidoshi's, I have to wonder if he is just jealous of her success. I've seen plenty of male vloggers who seem to be.

A good clue to that is when male vloggers make really silly complaints. Like this one:

"You would think that Filipina Pea would speak better English for as much English as she speaks in one week."

Really? Pea speaks better English than I do and I've spoken it for decades longer than Hidoshi has been alive.

But if you think that was a stupid complaint by Hidoshi, wait till you see this next one:

"It's unfortunate that I have to say this but I think Filipina Pea is an American woman in disguise."

So he thinks she should speak better English, yet he thinks she is an American woman?

There is so much dumbness in what Hidoshi says that I considered the possibility that it was all a joke, but at no time does he ever say he is just kidding. As such, some people are going to believe the nonsense he says. One more quote:

"In some of her videos, Filipina Pea likes to bring suitcases of attorneys into her videos. Ooo."

Uh, I've seen her bring ONE attorney in, when she is going to be talking about a legal issue. Seems reasonable to me.

I mentioned the jealousy angle earlier. These issues Hidoshi brings up are so silly, I can't think of another motivation for them.

I've heard plenty of male vloggers complain that it is easier for a woman to get views. A classic example was also from Jay Hidoshi who said in one of his videos something like, "I can’t just get in from of a camera and shake my whatever and get views". And let me tell you, thank god he doesn't!

Other men have tried to make essentially the same objection.

It may even be true to a very limited extent and on very limited topics. For example, how many women have top channels on tech subjects, like computers? I know women who are quite knowledgeable, yet have a small fraction of the views male vloggers get on the same subject. I suspect the same can be said for vlogs about cars and trucks. Funny thing, but I never hear men whining about the advantage they have in those areas.

Frankly, they sound much like modern feminists who want at least the same results in areas where they are less successful, but are fine with those areas where they have an advantage!

I'll be covering things about this war between men and women in future videos and, frankly, I see both sides as being ridiculous.

But back to the matter of Filipinas having some "unfair" advantage in certain cases, that isn't necessarily true. I see lots of Filipina channels, including ones that really push the sexual approach, that aren't successful. After all, if guys just want that, there is no shortage of sites that are far more explicit for free. Just being attractive usually isn't enough. Providing good content makes a huge difference.

Consider something else. Like the age of some of the most successful expat channels in the Philippines. Even being rather old, they may have many tens of thousands or even more than 100 thousand subscribers. Now consider how many subs a Filipina of the same age range can expect to get. Usually not many. Is that fair? Should we listen to them whine about how they can't do as well as older men? Women tend to have a very narrow age range to attract an audience. Through quality work, they may keep it as they get much older, but they face, overall, just as big a challenge as men do.

Life isn't fair. Get used to it and do the best job you can.

Vloggers aren't the only trolls. Many commenters are trolls as well. For example, reading the comments on Philly's video I just talked about, it was easy to find people who said they liked the videos from The Filipina Pea, and easy to find trolls responding by just calling them simps. Over and over. No rational argument comes to their mind. They are much like MYK's Philippine Journey channel.

When trolls do try to make an argument, they'll often resort to the "prove a negative" tactic. It lets them make any accusation they want and then put the burden on you to "prove" it isn't true. There is a reason you are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court and the principle doesn't just apply in a courtroom. Gossips, whether men or women, who go around making assumptions to smear others are simply being unethical.

Those who use the excuse that it isn't a legal situation are really just making excuses for unethical behavior. Along this same line, you'll see people regularly declare that by starting a YouTube channel, you are a public figure and thus it is legal for them to go after you. People use this excuse when going after celebrities all the time.

Heck, I remember a cute child star who, literally on the day she turned 18, photographers tried to take pictures up her dress. Doesn't matter if it is legal, it's still unethical and those men are pigs.

What you CAN do doesn't mean it is okay to do it. I guess I can legally go up to a woman pushing her baby in a carriage and say, "That is the ugliest baby I've ever seen". But I would be 100% wrong to do so, even if the baby was truly ugly.

Insults, libel or slander are never appropriate whether you can legally do it or not.

If you have proof of wrongdoing, fine, but most of what I see fails to provide that.

If I accuse you of being a scammer, the ethical thing for me to do is provide the proof that you are. But if I was unethical, I would say you have to prove you are NOT a scammer. That is what proving a negative means and it is usually impossible to do. If someone plays that tactic, you can be pretty sure they are less than honest themselves.

I had a commenter named Craig K who just made-up claims about Pea that he couldn't back up.

He started with this: "I believe Pea had at least one child". No support for his claim was offered. So is he making it up? Or repeating a claim he heard elsewhere? Or did he misunderstand something? But his post continued with this:

"She mention that in a video once. Years ago when I first saw her vids, just starting out."

Well, now we know his source, but we have a problem, because I had seen all of Pea's videos and she never said any such thing. So we have narrowed it down to his either misremembering or making it up.

I responded with this:

"You 'believe' she has at least one child, yet you have nothing to back it up other than the vague claim she mentioned it. Yet she has never done so and I've watched all her vids."

We can't both be right, but Craig doesn't offer any substance. Instead he uses the "repetition equals truth" tactic in his next post saying:

"She said she had a child. Was a few years ago when she first started. It's you dude who has no evidence she has no child."

Well, as you will see, he's wrong about my evidence, but note the "prove a negative" tactic, saying I can't prove she doesn't. If he actually knows she has a child, he should be able to back it up. He couldn't.

I challenged him again:

"She never said she had a child. You made the claim. The burden of proof is on you. So should have been easy for you to link to the video and give a time stamp. You don't. Because you can't. So I'll show you how it's done."

I then included the link to her first video, with a time stamp which revealed that Pea really said this:

"I've never been married, no kids, but I've done my fair share of dating a wide variety of people, both locals and foreigners."

So Craig changed his claim, believe it or not, to say, "She has a few kids".

I then asked him where he did he get this stuff, since he had not provided any evidence at all. His final post was just as stupid as the rest as he just said, "Sorry to break your heart, she does".

Just repetition of an empty claim.

If this continued, I can pretty much tell you how it would go. The accuser would say, as Craig did, that it was in an early video. So if someone checked the first 5 and didn't find it, the response would be something like, "It was early, but not in the first five".

So you watch the first 10, and still don't find anything. The typical reaction would be that it was after those as well. If you watch every video, they'll just say you must have missed it.

It's time for men to start acting like real men, not like the stereotypical old lady gossipers.

Thanks for watching and don't let the trolls stop you from speaking out.