Jakub Dziadkowiec - Crypto Media Manipulation: What Are Journalists Telling Us?

organiz Okay. Hello guys. And my name is Jacob and thank you for not trying to pronounce my last name because that would be that wouldn't work. My last name is Jat Kovetts. I'm from Poland.

I represent Being Crypto which is a media newslet. We publish analyzes, news, uh featured articles, opinions, interviews in more than 25 languages. Right now I am an editorin chief in Polish edition. But today I represent the global brand. So if any one of you is interested in a global exposure of your projects, ideas uh don't hesitate to approach and speak with me.

It's a pleasure to be here in this amazing university, this amazing place uh of Chittad Napoli. Uh I am very happy to be here. Uh besides working in crypto industry, besides being um cryptojournalist, I do also work at the similar university as this one. It's an international university in a city when I'm based which is the east part of Poland, city called Lubdin. So this uh academic atmosphere is always a place when I feel comfortable and okay.

So I'm really happy about this space. Anyways guys, do you hear me properly? Is it okay? Thank you very much. So my topic for today is cryp is about crypto media obviously because I work there and about crypto media manipulation.

What are journalists telling us? What are making us to believe? Uh what are pushing us on? Um, and more importantly, why are they doing that? And will they will they be doing that in the future?

Okay, I will try to uh give you my insights, give you my view on that. Some kind some kind of controversial topic. I hope you'll find it interesting. By the way, this is my um Twitter X account. If you'd like to scan it and follow me, you may expect that I will follow you back.

That would be a pleasure. By the way, do we have any cryptocurrency holders here? Anybody has crypto? Of course. Not not not so obvious.

Not everybody. Also you. Okay, perfect. Amazing. Uh do we have some people from crypto startups, web three startups?

You have your own ideas. You're developing your firms, companies. Okay, I see a few people. Amazing. Uh do we have some other media representatives?

There we go. Okay. Double roll or triple roll. Perfect. Okay.

Amazing guys. Thank you very much for that. I will be asking you more questions. I work at the university so expect some more questions. Okay.

Anyways, um let me see if that works. Uh that's supposed to Did I turn it off? No, it's on. Maybe on the screen. No.

Yeah, it was working. Can you do it manually?

Yeah, maybe the battery went down. I don't know. Um, yeah. So, my presentation is um divided into five parts. Five parts.

First of all, I'm going to tell you about um do we trust crypto media or not. Then I'm going to show you 10 uh ways of manipulation, manipulation in cryp in in media in general, how journalists manipulate us. And I will give some crypto examples because crypto gives us the most emotions and there is a room for a lot of manipulation to be honest. Then I will try to explain uh why crypto media uh authors, companies, firms manipulate the audience in some extent and then I will try to explain uh I will try to answer the question will they be manipulating us? will they be pushing uh some of their ideas and uh not necessarily clear intentions onto us?

And the answer will be will be yes. Oh, something's moving. That's the one. Will you be moving the slides for me? Thank you very much.

All right, I'll show you the sign and she's going to tell me the sign after the five. Okay, so we have uh we are in Italy. We have this um language, right? Okay. So there is the content uh and what are the consequences at the very end I will tell you about the consequences for us the audience regular guys and the consequences for uh crypto crypto media outlets who sometimes uh abuse it right next slide please okay guys what do you think about Media in general.

Do you trust them?

We don't trust media. Anybody trust media? Anybody? Cozy cozy. Okay.

Some of them we trust. We choose some media to trust. We choose some other not to trust. If we are on the left wing, the we selecting leftwing media. Okay.

If we are aware of that, right-wing, central, whatever, if it comes to politics, right? If it comes to any other social or business things, we also we do have our sources that we trust. Do you trust crypto media? Do you actually listen to what they saying or you think they're trying to deceive you, try to fool you? No.

No. No trust. Where you from?

Where you from originally?

Ukraine.

Ukraine. I see that. Yeah. In Poland, we also don't trust anybody, right? Ukraine.

This this block posts Soviet block. You don't trust anybody. This is why we still we're still here. Okay. Uh okay.

And the second question is what are they pushing on us? How they manipulating us? And I will show you 10 uh types of manipulations. Uh next slide please. There are 10 points here.

You have two. First one cherry picking selection of information. Right. Journalists may easily pick up cherrypick those information that they think they have the most influence. They will think there will be most viral that will be most attractive and will attract the audience.

An example of that in crypto market is in an article about crypto market. A journalist may only select cases which alcoins experience large drops ignoring the increase of other markets. Right? Right now we are in the bull market obviously but there are still some projects collapsing right and if I would like to um manipulate your perception of that market I would only uh cherry pick those project that are dropping sharply right second one is sensational headlines in which we are using over exclamations we are um using sentences that are aimed to create fod or fomo you know that FOMO excitement, fat, fear, right? Uh for example, Ethereum network suspended.

How will this affect your wallet, right? And immediately people who have Ethereum or are somehow connected to the network are feel are feel start feel to feel in danger, right? They're clicking, they're checking. So that's obvious manipulation. Next one, please.

Hedging options hedging sorry not options we are not on the futures market but opinions um journalists use phrases like some crypto experts say there is a possibility nothing is guaranteed but there is a possibility that it's going to work or that's going to success or collapse. Um for example, ex experts predict the growth of DeFi, but there are some um possible regulatory problems uh potential problems, right? So that's also another way of uh finding an angle that is aimed to shape or give you a perception that is uh willing to introduce some manipulation. So let's see fourth framing. This is how journalists present events in a certain way which can influence how they are perceived by audience.

Right? So we are creating like a frame to see only a certain angle. For example, EU regulations. Some may be super enthusiastic about these regulations saying, "Okay, that's going to bring crypto to next level." But they are ignoring the limitations KYC and other limitations that are against the thing that you mentioned in the previous panel when we talked about cypher punk ethos, right?

and and the way to become like kind of invisible or anonymous. Next, oh it works now. Thank you very much. Uh now next is fifth testing emotions. We uh we we tend to use uh phrases like catastro crash crisis only to pro provoke fear input fear on the potential audience.

uh and vice versa obviously to create FOMO and u greed in in our audience. The new ICO project raises billions in 24 hours. This will be the future of finance. That type of headlines are obviously not okay because they are aimed to manipulate uh the audience and to impose and force them to get interest in that project and probably invest in it. Number six, historical context, right?

Historical context. It's very efficient, especially when it comes to data and uh price analyzes, right? We can look at the chart of Bitcoin from the different time frames, right? The bigger the time frame, the more um up uptrend there is, right? But there is always a possibility to go to the very small time frame and and and explain all right everybody who bought Bitcoin yesterday are are losing are losing money right uh because it went down we without taking consideration the entire context of the previous bull markets and the cycles and what's not right another one is regulations in China right we can say oh my god China banned Bitcoin, China banned bind uh banned ma mining, right?

And these poor miners, they will need to close their uh their their their mining um computers. Uh but this is the you know 30th time when China banned Bitcoin and after two weeks they make it legal again. So that is completely out of historical context. Number seven, expert opinions. Um it is very easy to say the expert says that that's not my opinion that's not my uh that's not my point of view that's not my perspective.

uh we can say I don't know Max Kaiser predicts Bitcoin for half a million per per per BTC um analyzes um from a large investment firm predicts that Bitcoin will increase 30% in next month right and then we are again uh trying to create type of emotions but without taking responsibility for that we are putting that responsibility on somebody else somebody who's the author of that prediction even if that's just you not supported with any data or analyszis. Number eight, manipulation of statistics. Again, we can say 80 80% of crypto investors are losing. Yeah, but we are not we are not telling them the the period of our analyzes, right? Maybe that's only last two hours when the crypto went uh 0.

5% down, right? So we are again trying to create emotions without bringing the historical context and full data, full statistics. And last two there is a breaking news tactics. Everything that is labeled breaking news has potentially and actually more um input more influence on the readers or on the audience than like standard news because you know especially in super fast crypto market. Uh when anything happens it happens instantaneously and it influence all the markets altogether right.

Uh so even if we are trying as cryptojournalists to stay ahead of the of the of the curve it is impossible because market is always faster than language than information than uh than the exchange of articles or news but it's also a tactic that actually works and everything labeled breaking news is potentially giving better results. And finally long-term predictions my personal favorite because I'm also a kind of long-term analyst. uh in the long term you can say whatever you like to be honest and it's not it's it's not available for an instant verification obviously that's a thesis that's a hypothesis about the future right no one can blame you now if they're going to dig to your article after two three five months or even years nobody will blame you then right so it's again saying something without any responsibility obvious obviously there are uh long-term predictions of prices, projects and what's not. But um that strategy can be easily used in crypto media sector. Then let me go to the third part of my presentation.

Third out of five, let me remind you. Yes, thank you. Uh why are they pushing that on us? What is the goal? Why crypto media are doing that?

So I want to surprise you because the goal is not to mislead the readers. We don't want to fool our audience. It's not it it is not to scam them, right? Not to take financial advantage. It's not a market manipulation.

That's a uh that's a myth which is impossible in the present market state of liquid market and not to provoke dramatic fad or FOMO. What is the goal then? The goal is profit. We want to make money on it. But the question is how can you make money about on writing about crypto?

How can you monetize a cryptocurrency portal? Anybody knows how how do you make money on writing?

Ads. Very good. That's one. Another you just place ads of like any of your businesses. We can put them on our site.

You paid and that's okay. Another one.

Affiliates. Exactly. links. We promote this all that we say you have a discount if you use our link. Very good.

And and one more, three more, seven more. Okay, there's one more which is uh sponsored articles, right? It's kind of advertising but within our content for the reliable good crypto media portal always sponsored articles are labeled sponsored, right? So the reader know that this is not our opinion. This is an opinion of a person or a company who pays for that.

And on my at my university, one of the topics, one of the subjects modules I lecture is ethics because uh I studied philosophy for 10 years. So I also see ethical dilemas here. Ethical dilemma which I called reliability versus profit. And it goes down to few questions like should we honestly um should should we do an honest advertising of good decent projects or manipulating of content and graphics just to make them more popular and sell them easily. Should we do affiliations with valuable partners or those who pay?

That's why good media they have the scam check department. Right? So before they publish anything they check whether that's a scam or not because you know that's uh that's going to put us down if we promote scams obviously and uh should we accept articles from reputable companies those who have high reputation or just those who pay right there are different strategies depending on which stage of development you are. Uh will they continue pushing that on us? Will they continue their manipulation?

Obviously yes. Why? First of all because it works. It works. People just are hungry for that kind of manipulation.

Uh others are doing that. Other cryp crypto outlets, media outlets doing that. And we want it. We readers want it. You may ask me how do we want it?

Do we want to be manipulated? And the answer is yes, we won't because there is anformational overload. We have too much information, too many information. We want to frame it, narrow it down to a sentence, two sentence and it's done. we understand it or we think we understand it.

We all have second selective perception. No one can see everything. You know, every second we get we are bombarded by a lot of information. We need to select it and a proper media or those who provide information help us with this selection. And the the last thing we want it because we want emotions because we want this sensational.

We want to fear greed. We want to feel fear. That's how we are created. We are not just brains in the vessel experiment matrix kind. No, no.

We have emotions. We have uh we have um feelings. All right. Uh and that's the conclusion of my uh presentation. What are the consequences on your left hand sides for the readers and on your right hand side uh right hand side for the crypto crypto media outlets?

uh if it's a moderate use, moderate manipulation, delicate, not brutal, not like strong, there is no consequences. We will accept it and we will okay. We have many sources. We will be okay as readers. If that's an extremuse, that's devastating, right?

That's ultra negative for our perception and also most of intelligent readers will uh will reject that uh portal and will not go back to it ever again. What are the consequences for the media newslet? Uh similar in the moderate use non to slightly positive or negative depending how you how you frame it. In extrem use in a short term extremely positive because they still trust you so they will just listen to you but after some time extremely negative long term that's not a strategy to survive on the market. But please remember that at the end of the day we are all here for the technology.

Thank you. [Applause]