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When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in spring 2020, tens of thousands of apartments in New York City suddenly became available as residents fled the city in droves. All of a sudden, one of the world’s most competitive rental markets found itself with very few renters.
“Things totally changed,” Cash Jordan, a licensed real estate broker in the city, said in an interview with the trade publication the Real Deal. “Renters were in high demand. There are just so many empty apartments, and the supply and demand just flip-flopped.”
To survive as a realtor in this unprecedented market, Jordan got creative. He started posting several times a week, to his YouTube account, videos of himself walking through his listings. The footage often opened with b-roll from around the neighborhood, followed by introductions to hidden neighborhood gems, like coffee shops or restaurants. During these virtual showings, he injected lighthearted commentary, sometimes even poking fun at an apartment’s cramped closet or tiny bathroom.
But five years since he posted his first virtual showing video and almost two decades since he moved here, Jordan—who was one of New York City’s most well-known realtors on YouTube, promoting the dream of living here—has now become one of its most vocal critics. Once innocuous videos, such as “Living in a Tiny Box-Apartment on an NYC Roof” or “SEE a $2,900 Brooklyn PENTHOUSE with ROOF DECK and a BALCONY,” have given way to clickbait titles like “NYC is Now So Dangerous … Nobody Can Live Here,” “NYC Installs Cameras … To Tax Trump Supporters,” and “Venezuelan Gang Invades Manhattan … As NYC Collapses.”
Equally misleading are his preview thumbnails, which now exclusively feature images that appear to have been created by generative A.I. tools to depict throngs of gangs or rioters flooding every corner of the city, evoking scenes reminiscent of The Walking Dead rather than bustling Midtown Manhattan.
While surprising, Jordan’s heel turn is just one example of a larger trend of creators taking advantage of social media algorithms that reward sensationalism and fearmongering over facts. Since YouTube is now one of the most popular sources of news in America, the site has become a target for creators and news influencers like Jordan to leverage their platforms and parlay them into lucrative sponsorship deals—at the expense of their audiences and the truth.
“Fundamentally, this is all about the algorithm,” Claire Wardle, an associate professor at Cornell University and a leading expert on misinformation and user-generated content, told Slate. “In many ways, these videos emulated Trump’s remarks, Fox News, or One America News. But this is not Trump or the Murdochs, but just a dude who may have figured out a way to maybe make a ton of money.”
Jordan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Cash Jordan/YouTube
In recent months, Jordan has landed multiple brand sponsorships, from a large personal-injury law firm to a local moving company. Meanwhile, his channel has ballooned to more than 1.2 million subscribers at the time of reporting, a number that surpasses many local TV stations and outlets on YouTube. But instead of providing news grounded in facts, Jordan wields his megaphone to falsely portray New York as a real-life Gotham City. His stories cite migrants overwhelming the city, criminals running amok in the subways, and homeless people “destroying” its beloved public parks, claims that have led some tourists to question whether they should reconsider their plans to visit and others to wonder if it’s safe to take the subway at all. Some original fans have lamented that this once fun and informative property channel has become a hub for demonstrably untrue claims about New York City, with some accusing Jordan of grifting and capitalizing on the age-old fear of the crime-ridden urban center.
Jordan has found a successful niche by sensationalizing crime and chaos in one of the world’s most populated and frequently visited cities. Since he posted the first series of videos on these topics starting in late 2023, engagement of his videos have soared, leading his subscriber number to double within a year. Many of his videos now garner more than a million views.
Cash Jordan/YouTube
His rise in popularity may provide another example of how technology and profit motives enable misinformation to spread easily. Americans are increasingly being misled not by Macedonian teens or the Russian intelligence service, but by creators who see a viable business model in simply amplifying misleading narratives and reinforcing division in an already deeply polarized society.
For example, Jordan’s relentless fearmongering about subway safety and alternative transportation—including the ongoing plan to expand protected bike lanes throughout the five boroughs—not only is misleading online but may have bolstered arguments from local and national politicians against initiatives aimed at making commuting safer and reducing car reliance. In 2024 vehicle collisions resulted in 251 fatalities, including 147 pedestrians and cyclists, while 10 people lost their lives on the subway.
In recent years, social media platforms have either drastically loosened their moderation policies or eliminated fact-checking altogether in the United States, reverting to an approach before QAnon memes and “Plandemic” videos flooded the internet. That wave of disinformation helped fuel the violent Jan. 6 riots, during which thousands of extreme supporters of Donald Trump used these same platforms to mobilize and attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Keenan Chen
Critics have long argued that social media platforms don’t just enable misinformation but incentivize it, rewarding misleading content by sharing ad revenue with creators and providing features that help them sell merchandise or collect donations from fans. Take Tim Pool as an example. The former Occupy Wall Street livestreamer turned alt-right talking head has frequently hosted supporters of QAnon, “Stop the Steal,” and other conspiracy theories on his shows over the years—and has in the past four years taken in more than $1.3 million in fan donations on YouTube alone.
To be fair, not all news influencers profit from misinformation and polarization. But a Pew Research study from last fall found that some of the most popular news influencers in the United States are disproportionately male and tend to be more right-leaning politically. And that’s why many postelection pundits hypothesized that Joe Rogan and other prominent “podcast bros” have helped rehabilitate Trump and expand his reach, while negative content about Kamala Harris from news influencers was twice as likely to be critical, according to Pew. But the opportunity to profit from advertising revenue and sponsorship money has also attracted side hustlers just like Jordan, who hope to generate income outside their full-time jobs.
Also of concern, as some social media users have noticed, is the proliferation of so-called faceless accounts. These are creators who have learned that they can rack up views on YouTube by repurposing highly partisan culture-war material—often from cable networks and right-wing influencers—into news clips. On some occasions, these “faceless” creators have openly boasted about their monetization strategies and how they use A.I. tools to generate thumbnails and titles and even automate their entire workflow.
“7 million views a month,” one such creator boasted in an X post, in which they also claimed that they earned tens of thousands of dollars from multiple YouTube channels specializing in anti-woke content such as “When Elon Musk DESTROYED a Woke Reporter …” and “ALL Celebrity & Liberal Meltdowns As Trump WINS ELECTION.”
Combating this misinformation used to be the responsibility of the platforms themselves. However, due to recent content moderation policy changes and attitude shifts in Big Tech in the wake of the 2024 election, these platforms are largely shirking these duties—leaving their users to fend for themselves.
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“In 2020 you might have asked the platforms to do more. But we’re in a different era now,” Wardle said. She added that the issue is exacerbated by emerging technology such as A.I. As such, she’s concerned that the information environment is only becoming more polluted and that the public will have a much harder time accessing quality information.
To spot false news or A.I.–generated visual content, media literacy experts and fact-checkers often advise readers to look out for vague or overly exaggerated language, inconsistencies in images such as mismatched shadows or unnatural proportions, and visuals that appear almost too perfect to be real. And if readers decide to share content on social media, they recommend verifying the context and tracing the original source to ensure accuracy.
Hannah Covington, of the News Literacy Project, told Slate that it’s crucial “to be able to understand what credibility looks like” and “recognize it in action.”
“These are ‘digital survival skills,’ ” she added.
Still, stronger moderation and algorithmic oversight by social media companies is essential to curb misinformation on their own platforms. But with Big Tech in the U.S. moving in the exact opposite direction, spreading misinformation is going to get a lot easier—while spotting it gets a whole lot harder.
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