Now on Bbc News the media show. Hello. Are you finally in a position to make some money out of Social Media . Well, the big name companies do very nicely, thank you, out of what you post on what you share, but have the tables turned in favour of the individual . Can we all make cash with our latest musical composition or the recipe we lovingly demonstrate if were a little bit smarter about it . Well, websites like Patreon Offer fans the ability to pay their favourite artists and writers directly. Tiktok and facebook have started Offering Cash to the most popular creators. So, is there money to be made in the so called creative economy, and how worried are the big beasts, facebook, youtube, tiktok, about the competition and whos moderating all of this online . Well, let me introduce you to our guests. Sam yam is the Co Founder and now the Chief Technical Officer Of Patreon. In a few sentences, sam, give us a flavour of what patreon actually is and what it does. Thanks for having me, julian. Patreon is effectively a platform for creators to get paid in an ongoing sustainable way to their community, and in return, their community gets access to exclusive content, access to the creators and in many cases, a Safe Environment for their community. Well expand on that in the next 25 minutes or so. Becky flint is a social Media Influencer and founder pepper studio, a Social Media marketing agency. How do you spot the next big youtube or Tiktok Star . I think the really important thing to remember about Social Media is often, were going there to see unpolished is better, almost. Were looking for things that are relatable and almost, kind of, more attainable than the typical celebrity, and i think thats the secret. Chris Stokel Walker has written books about youtube and now tiktok as well. With tiktok in mind, chris, to what extent has it been the year of tiktok 2021 . Because it seems to have come out of nowhere. It has. Nobody can be a beneficiary. Of the pandemic i dont think, julian, but tiktok has done that survival a little bit better. In March 2021 alone,. We spent as much time on the app as we did from the Stone Age until today, so that gives us an idea just how much we are addicted i to all those creators. Thats quite a statistic. Kya, you create a weekly newsletter. Before that, she covered tech. We are going to hear the Words Creator and influencer i suspect quite a lot in the next 25 minutes. Whats the difference . So, this has been a huge topic of debate for some people. For me, i really think theyre interchangeable. I think a few years ago, we would have said Instagram Influencer and a youtube creator, but i think creator has become the more preferred word now but i dont think theres a huge difference between them. It really refers to someone who has a following online and is creating content. Let me stay with you for a moment on the Status Quo and what we might be changing from. Say for the sake of argument, someone has an instagram following of 100,000 people. How is she or he making money based on those 100,000 at the moment . The most common way by far is sponsored content, so thats promoting a product in an Instagram Post or in a story, so thats by far the most popular way people make money, but creators have really branched out. Theyre, you know, teaching online courses, starting podcast, selling merchandise, so there are a lot more ways to monetise but sponsored content is still number one by far. Thats Status Quo until at least fairly recently wasnt necessarily going to make a huge amount of money, was it . It depends. It really depends. Some people i talk to have a small niche following that they can really convert into buying things and they can make money so it really depends on the creator. Let me bring you in on youtube, tiktok, either of those and again youre creating and influencing and lets interchange the words again how much money you potentially making . So, there was a study done in 2016 of several million. Youtube channels that found i that basically from Advertising Revenue alone, so that is the adverts that you seel before, during, the videos that you watch a meetingl for instance, 96. 5 of people there did not get over the us poverty line, they did not make enough money to even earn a living off that but, as she said, l there are lots of other ways that you can there is the sponsored content and you have the Opportunity L also to do collaborations, off line events. We are seeing people selling out arenas for Boxing Events off. The back of their online influencer community, i so many different places. Youtube and tiktok of course also starting now to directly monetise people. But that 96. 5 figure, thats quite telling, isnt it . It is. I think this is a really broadly ranging subject and. The haves have an awful lot of money and they have the Have Nots who are most of us when it comes to create a space i and i think that tiktok in particular by trying i to develop a new way of doing this where they try and monetise as many people as they can by giving them a little bit, but there are always different platforms, not least patreon as welli who are, kind of, offering other alternatives. A sort of way of spreading out your eggs in many, many baskets. Becky, let me talk to you a moment about when you were a Youtube Influencer as a teenager under the name becky cruel, i think. And you did a lots of material which was watched and widely followed particularly injapan. Heres a clip of some of it. She sings injapanese and english. So, how much Money Remaking out of that at the time, roughly . Its difficult to say because what happened was i started youtube before Ad Sense even existed so the intentions behind created content back then were very different. We werent going into youtube and seeing people with mansions and massive houses and cars and things like that. We were just going to youtube to create and be part of the community. But you couldnt rely on it for a steady income . No, i mean, luckily, i was at school so i still had my parents supporting me, but even i was making my Youtube Videos and my case was a little bit different because the content i was making wasnt fully monetiseable. It contained copyrighted music which actually i didnt own the rights to and had to look elsewhere in terms of, as weve talked about, diversifying your income streams with regards to Social Media so merchandise, fan funding, models such as patreon and other kind of things like that. So, chris, going back to you if the majority of people are not making much, if any, money out of this approach at least at the moment, how do the Social Media companies make money out of what people are posting . Well, they make money out of our attention. We are engaged with all. Of these creators, we find them really interesting and like to develop into their lives. I used to watch becky. When i was younger and from that, basically, they have our attention so they serve Adverts L against that in many instances. You can buy an advert. On youtube that costs an awful lot of money, you can buy an advert on tiktok that will be slotted into the Feed Videos that you see. Those things cost an awful lot. Of money to buy for businesses and the money that they makej from that is basically ploughed into profits for the platform. Youtube makes billions of dollars in Advertisingj Revenue every single year off the back of, | essentially, free labour of millions of people. L i was going to say, it is unpaid labour, isnt it, by those of us who are posting stuff . It is, but then, theres the opportunity. Why do people want to become celebrities is. The question, and i that is because there is always this minute, i suppose, chance of actually making it big and striking It Rich and getting those million dollar mansions that becky was talking about. I dont think youre asking the right person about the celebrity idea, but i see where youre going. Sam, i wanted to come to you about patreon in a bit more detail now. That is to an extent meant to change at least some of it as i understand it. You launched it back, i think it was 2013, with a university friend. He was a musician but was only earning tiny sums on youtube. Was that how the idea began, to try and do something differently here . Yes, i mean, even for myself personally i had studied. Jack and i met in college because we were in a creative dorm. But i had studied 15 years of classical piano. My College Essay was about how my mum chopped off part of my middle finger in a Door Hinge but then i continued studying music and played in carnegie hall. But i didnt decide to music as my career because at that time certainly you had to be the absolute best to even consider a possible path forward. Where this was your life. And i think nowadays whats fascinating that the internet is that you can connect with these subpockets of communities, directly with your fans, and get monetised. Weve talked about how the majority of folks even in the Youtube Study arent necessarily making a living, but what were seeing now is there is absolutely a change in behaviour in understanding that consumers are willing to pay for content that they care about and because they particularly care about specific creators, so thats why its called the Creator Economy versus what you have with a gig economy. Its not commoditised. The specific creator that you care about is the one youre willing to support. And your platform is not just musicians, is it . We have all kinds of creators and platforms, musicians, journalists, people do photography, people in New York who document the plight of everyday humans, inventors, all kinds of folks who are able to connect to their community. How do the payments work if i put something on your platforms, who is paying what to whom . Its the direct connection you have with your fans and your they want to support both he was a creator and to get access to the exclusive content you are making. Right. So, people who want to know more about you because they have heard one thing you had put on your platform and like it, they will invest, if you like, and hope that as a result of doing so they will hear more . Absolutely. I would also say whats happening in the whole ecosystem is theres been easier access to creation and democratisation. So, you look at tiktok, its so easy now to create any piece of Content And Everyone has the chance to make it viral, and thats become more and more true as these tools become more advanced. Effectively, you have all of these people who want to learn how to become creators and look up to these are the creators and find that supporting them allows them to get deep into this craft. Within that model, is there a monthly Subscription Option for those who want to go down to that route . Yes, patreon is primarily about sustainable funding, so most of the option to provide creators allow for a sustainable recurring monthly revenue. Ok, so, they know what theyre going to get each month and obviously, youre taking a cut as of that, otherwise you wont be able to run it. Yes, we take a cut out of the revenues that come through. Compared to many other platforms, i would say our Take Rate to substantially smaller. Can you put a figure on what you take . It ranges depending on the options. To our platform, patreon, depending on the options its anywhere between 5 to 8 usually. In addition to that, are you offering attractions to those coming onto your platform, is there sponsorship, marketing, those kinds of things that might be a further attraction for them . We have added plenty of features like merchandising. Kaya mentioned are some of the Options Creators have today. The key piece Of Patreon is nothing here is exclusive and you can take in all these monetisation opportunities even as you are building up a membership sustainable Revenue Stream in our platform. And youre obviously building up numbers. Do you know how many patrons they are at the moment . Yes, we have over 8 Million paying patrons as of last month when i last checked. We also have over 200,000 creators that are getting paid every single month right now. Right, kaya how big an impact you think patreon is having, has already had . Yes, i think it works for certain people. I spoke with a creator recently who makes 80 of her income through Youtube Channel memberships and Patreon Channel memberships and she said that really works for her because she doesnt want to do sponsored Content And Push ads in front of audiences and people content. Other people say they dont want to take any money from the audience and they like the ad model, so it really depends on the creator. Some have seen success and some havent. But if you have a traditional outlet or what might be regarded as a traditional outlet, like a newspaper or a broadcaster, how do you see the arrival of a concept like this . Is this something to be wary of . Is this something to try and work alongside . I dont know if its wary of. I think were seeing this really interesting thing happen now where some journalists are going they have really big twitter followings and loyal audiences and are going off on their own and joining sub stacks. So i think Thats Something to watch the for traditional news rooms, but i dont know that patriot is really necessarily a threat to news outlets. What of other Social Media companies, though . Weve seen launches of quotes Content Creator Funds by facebook, by tiktok. Is that what theyre trying to deal with now . Theyre suddenly thinking we need to do something different here . Yes, i think tiktok and the pandemic have just been such big drivers of this. Tiktok has totally up ended the creator ecosystem. As sam mentioned, they had made it so easy for the average person to go viral and garner a big audience and i think that Social Media platforms of realising that creators drive a lot of engagement and trends, and its not enough any more to just give them a place to grow an audience. They need to offer them better features and ways to get money, and besides youtube, which used to be the only game in town, there wasnt a way to earn directly from Social Media networks until the last year or so. Will this will becky, what you make of these new developments . I think there is a really growing trend of creators who are trying to come a kind of, almost regain the connection between themselves and their audiences without the platform because at the end of the day, its really hard to trust the platforms. You know, changes are being made every single day to the algorithms, however content is being served to our audiences and is often done in a very hard to read, almost like Black Box algorithmic way, which is hard to decipher and decode and you often second guess yourself and what youre doing. Am i doing something wrong, why are my views not flowing very well any more . It can take a very big toll on your Mental Health as well so i think opportunities for creators to, kind of, regain that connection with their audience in a real direct way is something thats going to be really beneficial going forward. We have talked about making money via Social Media but of course, for every well intentioned musician, there is someone perhaps with slightly darker motives. I have been speaking to cath, who is a reporter from the Bbc Panorama Programme who has been investigating a new kind of criminal, the fraud influencer. Fraud influence is someone who has a large following that the difference is the engaging content they are putting out there is fraud. They are promoting this criminal lifestyle and sometimes even using Social Media to sell criminal services, fraudulent services. Now, you looked into an influencer called tankz. How many followers does he have online and what are those followers seeing . He has over 150,000 followers across different platforms. Tiktok, instagram, snapchat, twitter, and he posts these day in the life videos, day in the life of tankz, day in the life of a clicker, a Slang Word for fraud and you can see him glamorising fraud, wielding large amounts of cash, wielding multiple Bank Cards and on into them he is selling manuals, methods he calls them, and how you can commit fraud. You bought some of these manuals, these guides, to have a look at what was on offer, so what did you find . I cant go into too much detail because we dont want to teach people how to commit fraud fair enough. But it came in the form of a cloud storage link, and you click on it and find various Step By step guides on how to exploit weaknesses in the systems of online retailers, banks, a guide on how to defraud the governments universal credit scheme. He also provided you with links to website where you can go and buy peoples stolen personal information, known as fulls. We can hear a little bit from your panorama now. Im a london scammer, i see it, i want it, i click it. This is the sound of tankz, a fraud influencer, who posts tracks on youtube bragging about scams while keeping his true identity hidden. He has more than 150,000 followers across various Social Media platforms. Tankz and others like him are oh so openly trading takes on defrauding individuals, companies, banks and even the benefit system. Now, these Fraud Influencers use a whole array of different Social Media platforms, so what did those platforms say when you told them about tankz . Ive got to look at my list because we contacted quite a few Social Media platforms. We contacted twitter, instagram, facebook, they all say they dont allow Fraud Content on their platforms and in relation to tankz per se, his accounts and those respective platforms barring twitter and youtube, theyve been taken down. Lets get into the nuts and bolts of your investigation to an extent because there was some good old fashioned journalism going on here. How did you first come across these Fraud Influences . 0k, well, i might not look it, but im quite young and like a lot of young people, i. Youve got a few Years Advantage on me, lets put it on that way i hope so i spent a lot of time on Social Media scrolling through snapchat and i kept noticing the Fraud Posts popping up on my feed and it turns out im not the only one because as part of this investigation, i went to my Old School to speak to some 16 and 17 year olds. They said they were seeing the same thing, people glamorising fraud, selling methods on how you can commit fraud, and thats how i came across it and it turned out im not the only young person who has seen this kind of thing. And in the documentary, we see you exchanging messages, even Phone Calls with some of the fraudsters. Did that mean using Burner Phones, fake Social Media profiles to make sure that you are protecting yourself . Yes, so there were times when i was walking around with several Burner Phones with Burner Sim Cards and multiple fake identities online and fake profiles. The fraudsters remain anonymous and we were doing the same thing to protect ourselves. I know you track down the person who seemed to have been tankz and his own Social Media posts seem to have led you there. What did you spot there . What led you to the man you think is tankz . So, thats the problem that these Fraud Influences because part of being an influencer means showing your Life Online and tankz showed a bit too much online. There were little clues in his videos which helped us track him down. For starters, one video gave us a glimpse of his car number plate, which we were able to search official records and identify as a grey Vauxhall Corsa. Another video showed a distinctive patterned carpet which we linked to a Student Accommodation Block in wembley. The next step was to go to that Student Accommodation Block, wait for the Vauxhall Corsa to arrive and take pictures of tankz. In terms of his name, that was an old Ebay Account account called we are tankz and when you look at the Seller Information you can see the real name of the ebay seller, lukejosef. That name appears once again in an Apple Music Track copyrighted to luke josef. But its tankz singing. All of these clues put together makes us believe that tankz may be a student from london by the name of luke joseph. So, having put all this close together, what did you then do with the results of the investigation . Are police, for example, now pursuing some of these Fraud Influencers . In terms of the police, im not sure what theyre doing. Thats definitely one for them. Speaking to me a little earlier about panorama hunting the Social Media fraudsters which is available now on iplayer. 0nline Harm is a big issue at the moment. There is the fraud we have just heard about, in locations in the shooting in plymouth in the last week or so about radicalisation online. What are the Social Media companies doing about this just now . Theyre focused on Content Moderation and this is a perennial problem because for as long i as there have been Social Media platforms that have been issues of inappropriate Content Or Radicalisation through inappropriate consumption. Youtube, tiktok, instagram, facebook, twitter, all of the above use a combination of either computer technology, j artificial intelligence, j which basically combs through what you say, what you like to try. And find out, you know, inappropriate words and things like that and try to take them down and also human moderators. This is the human Side I of Social Media as we pay an awful lot of poorly contracted, poorly paid workers to try and deal with some l of the messes that we have on Social Media. They have limited success i in taking down some of this Content And Thatsjust simply because there i is a torrent of it. This is a massive fire. Hose full of information that is being posted every single day and it is difficult to keep on track. Although journalists like us often try to keep them more honest than they are. How does patrium tackle this particular issue . It is interesting mentioning the Human Moderation and we do want to take a Human Outlook on this and we dont necessarily want to be the arbiters of what art is or isnt and we believe in a diversity of opinions. But as i led, you know, in explaining what patreon was at the very beginning we also want us to foster Safe Community so i think for us there are certain types of behaviours that are very explicit. Actually, i thought initially when youre talking about fraud it was committing fraud against your community. Sometimes, you know, telling them to pay you in order to get financial Independence Or Something like that. But for us in particular there are certain things around Hate Speech or around Bullying Or Doxxing when you expose someone� s address that are just lines that do not support any sort of Safe Community. I know youve recently gave evidence to a select Committee Enquiry at westminster about this and about influencers . What did they want to know . Its really great that the government is taking more interest in influencers on Social Media in general and this was an enquiry into Influencer Culture, and they wanted to investigate the power of influencers on Social Media, how does Influencer Culture operate and also crucially about regulation, in particular with advertising as being, kind of, a few occasions over the past ten years, i would say, since influencers in Marketing And Advertising with Social Media has emerged that we have had a few incidences where people have got in trouble, and this is the crucial thing that i think connects all of this is the internet and Social Media and Influencer Culture itself is moving so quickly that the rules really havent been written yet. Were playing Catch Up Game where everything has to happen before we then decide how do we want to regulate it and how do we want to enforce it, and so these conversations being had in parliament at the moment hopefully are going to give us a little bit more Concrete Direction into how we can make the internet a safer and fairer place for everybody. That is all we have time for today, so thank you very much to all of our guests who have taken part in the media show. Sam yam, Co Founder Of Patreon, thank you. Reporter information, becky flint, Youtube Influencer and found of pepper studio, author of tiktok boom, chris Stokel Walker. And earlier, we heard from a reporter from panorama. We will be back at the same time next week with the media show. Thank you very much for watching and goodbye. Hello again. Is misty of the high ground more recently that rain has pushed its way further east with still some rain across eastern areas of scotland, Heavy Rain from northern england, wet weather for East Anglia and into the East Midlands and South East England here over the next few hours. Temperatures to start the day on sunday, 13 15 degrees. A scotland across eastern areas of england as well. Through sunday i think we will still have some cloud and patches of Rain Working in across the East Coast anywhere from lincolnshire down towards kent and later showers in central and later showers in central and eastern scotland, central and eastern scotland, central and eastern scotland, central and eastern england, dry was sunshine to south West England and wales, north West England, Northern Ireland and maybe Western Scotland as well. In the sunshine it will feel pleasant. Into next week a lot of dry weather on the Way And Thenit of dry weather on the way and then it should feel quite warm. Good morning, welcome to breakfast with Ben Thompson and sima kotecha. 0ur Headlines Today a week after the taliban regained control of afghanistan, us Troops Fire Tear gas in kabul to push back thousands desperate to flee. Americans are told not to gather at the Capitals Airport because of possible Security Threats from islamic state militants. Former prime minister tony blair, who sent troops into afghanistan 20 years ago, describes the us decision to withdraw as tragic, dangerous and unnecessary. In other News Covid Antibody tests are offered