r/firelookouts • u/Such_Morning4459 • 15d ago

"social media lookouts" and government ethics

tiktok lookouts making money using their federal jobs as content, am I insane or is that extremely not allowed/borderline illegal?

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u/Mysterious_Flight_ 15d ago

Being a lookout is both a lifestyle and a job, the lookouts that I've seen post online seem to be completely acceptable/ethical. We have hours when we are working, but there are also hours where we are just living our normal lives while on site and people pursue all sorts of hobbies.I don't see why content creation would be any different (from an ethics standpoint) from something like writing a book about life as a lookout

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u/Such_Morning4459 15d ago edited 15d ago

Yeah that's why I asked because I'm not entirely sure of the rules concerning it. Also you're pretty off on that book analogy. The people on tiktok are literally filming a video of them reporting a smoke and then making a profit off said video. I promise you that violates some form of ethics and at the very least it's an incredibly bad look in this current fraud, waste and abuse era we're in

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u/seloki 14d ago

They’re not “making a profit off said video”, they’re making money off the engagement with that video. Subtle distinction, but it’s important. They didn’t sell the rights to the video, or sell tickets to watch the video, which of course would be an ethical violation. They posted something that is free to the end user, and the money they make is from the host getting advertising dollars from engagement with that video. So it doesn’t technically violate any government social media policy.