I see what your saying, but your examples don't quite work.

A reporter telling lies would presumable be called into their managers office and told to shape up or be fired. A painter doing rush jobs would get bad reviews and no referrals, and eventually stop getting jobs. Those behaviors are not incentivized.

A youtube creator milking the algorithm is rewarded for this behavior, with more views, more ad money, etc.

Are we really surprised that people are doing what they are incentivized to do?

> A reporter telling lies would presumable be called into their managers office and told to shape up or be fired.

I can't help but read this and feel like you must not be familiar with the UK press, particularly the tabloids. The UK tabloids make shit up all the fucking time with next to zero consequences.

For a more US centric take you might want to read Ryan Holiday's book "Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions Of A Media Manipulator". He goes into specific detail about his time when he was in charge of marketing for American Apparel and how he got US media outlets to write completely bullshit stories for him and others clients like Tucker Carlson to get publicity. There's hardly anyone doing proper fact checking at a lot of these publications anymore, especially on smaller stories, because their print revenues have collapsed since the internet and they're desperately trying to stay afloat.

The painter example makes sense since his customers are his users, so the incentives are aligned.

The journalist is not like that. His users are the readers, but his customers are the advertisers. And if he is lying and gaining clicks and ad engagement, he is more likely to be called in by his boss for a promotion than a scolding.

A reporter telling lies with plausible deniability, like a manipulative headline clarified in the middle of the article, is actually expected. Some Youtubers at least are scumbags for real money

I think my examples do actually work well, in that the painter and the TV reporter ARE incentivized, short term to do those clickbait things, in exactly the same way YouTube creators are.

In all cases, reality will catch up to them, and in the long term they will be punished for what they did in the name of short term gains.

What's the long-term reality catch-up mechanism in the social media space?

In this and other examples, getting deplatformed and losing your sources of income.

They already made millions - it doesn't work.

And in fact, Google and others profit from this carnage.

> YouTube Blocks Russell Brand From Making Money Through Its Platform

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/arts/russell-brand-youtub...

That's a consequence of him being a [alleged] rapist. It's not a consequence of him publishing nonsensical and pretentious conspiracy theory videos.

Through neglect, passive sabotage, and active direction, our society degrades to the point that NO ONE can make clickbait content.

> A house painter would make more money if he did a rush job

If the way to find a painter is to use the yellow pages, and the order inside the yellow pages is by the time the to finish painting, most of the jobs will go to people that make a rush job, thus pushing painters into that direction.