Tom Scott releases a VPN ad despite heavily criticizing it in the past

Back in 2019 a famous Youtuber Tom Scott released a video about VPNs misleading advertising claims. The video was titled “This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN“.

In the video Tom Scott said that VPNs have a valid and reasonable uses, but the form of advertising them on Youtube and other social media is mostly false and misleading the customer. Claims that VPNs provide military-grade encryption connections and they secure you from hackers and mostly invalid.

There are valid uses for VPNs although, such as:

• unlocking geoblocked websites and online services (for instance streaming apps like Netflix or Disney+)
• bypassing mobile hotspot throttling
• accessing websites like Google and Facebook from China or Russia

Now, in his 2022′ video titled “My robot double sells out (so I don’t have to)” Tom Scott recalls his previous take on VPNs – saying that at the time VPN advertising was “stretching the truth a bit”. He decides to promote a well-known VPN brand: NordVPN. He continues to say that his video worked in terms on shedding a light on the problem and that the VPN companies no longer promote their services using these misleading claims. “That video changed the industry. It changed how VPNs were sold!“

Then, he uses a robot to do an “ad read” for his video, promoting one of the biggest VPNs in the industry – NordVPN.