I'm having a hard time comparing participating in a video interview to giving a back massage. For better or worse, more and more universities and national labs are putting up videos about their research. If the student has an actual concern, they should state it, not dodge the question. Sure, you can't force them to do it, but it is getting more and more common.

Would give -1 if I could vote. The OP clearly states the reason for these videos and on the face of it they seem reasonable with respect to what he is trying to achieve. How on earth are they abusive intentions? Plus, the student agreed to participate. If he/she felt it was abusive they should have said no.

@JonCuster if you are acknowledging that “sure, you can’t force them to do it” then nothing more needs to be said. OP’s demand is illegitimate (and possibly illegal as I commented above) and a refusal to meet the demand requires no explanation; the student can refuse for any reason, or for no reason at all. Also note that “sure, you can’t force them to do it” is completely at odds with OP’s question, which is precisely about seeking advice about how to “force them to do it”. So yeah, the back massage comparison may be a tiny bit over the top, but nonetheless both requests are invalid.

I agree with @camden_kid, when someone agreed, s/he cannot refuse. It might be unusual or even unreasonable but as the group leader, s/he had the legitimate right to plan his/her own strategy, and recruit researchers/students who agree to that.

Thanks all for your thoughtful comments, I’ll try to make an edit to the answer a bit later with some related thoughts.

I haven't voted one way or another, but the prof did bring up that he does videos in the interview and the student said yes ... I agree that it would be abusive to retaliate toward someone for not participating in something like this that is pretty far afield, but I don't think the situation is as bad as you portray it. I think maybe you've been influenced by the OP's tone, which is rather off-color. || Anecdotally, if I was asked by a potential supervisor if I wanted to do this I'd be really excited!

@DanRomik: I +1'ed your answer, and particularly like the second-to-last paragraph. However, it's not impossible that OP believes that social media items are very useful to promoting the group's activities, so in my answer I tried to speak to that. From your answer OP will realize how people who don't automatically share that perspective may perceive his request/demand.

@camden_kid "The OP clearly states the reason for these videos" Not really. For one thing, note that they said " One of my strategies for a visible start". A visible start for what? Their quest for tenure? The students' careers? The group (whatever that is, the OP leaves this matter undiscussed as well)?

Re "he said yes", a possibly related cultural phenomenon: quora.com/… also travel.stackexchange.com/questions/17102/…

110% agree with everything you said here, but you lost me with the parenthesis at the end of your second edit paragraph. You basically say "think what you want about these people, but respect their decision" and then with the parenthesis you turn around and say "but by the way, what you're thinking is wrong about me because look at what a good speaker I am." It feels unneeded and a little like out of place bragging. I'd edit it out.

@scohe001 it's not super important, but I feel that that sentence makes a small contribution towards enhancing the narrative of my answer, regardless of whether there is any important moral to it (I'm not sure if there is or there isn't, and bragging was not my motivation for including it). Thanks for the suggestion though.

I don't think the long edit at the end makes this answer any stronger. It rather weakens the general point a bit. Because it seems you take all of this in the privacy direction, which may or may not apply here. We know little to nothing about the concerns of the student; could be that he makes youtube videos in his free time, but just wants to spend his working hours doing important research and hence refuses to take part in the new media playground party. The first part of this answer would still apply in such case, would it not? The edit then just seems irrelevant.

Your anecdote only waters down a strong(ly worded) initial argument. Before you refused filming, you probably didn't initally agree. After your refusal, the would-be filmographers probably don't have to continue working with/supervising you for years. Maybe your emotions and hidden rationale are shared by the OP's student but its impossible to know. The entirely of your anecdote only serves the reader if you have exactly guessed his lack of empathy for people with strongly held, hidden, undefended film-abstention belief systems. Based on the OP's wording, justification is in fact necessary

To the user who raised the Low Quality Post flag on this post, would you please explain? I did review this answer and did not find its low quality. You may strongly disagree with it, but the answerer has his view point. I have reviewed literally thousands of posts (you would know it if you have enough reps on this site), saying this is low quality is like saying we can throw away 90% of the posts on this site. I gave it "Looks OK".

@ImportanceOfBeingErnest there is no way for the privacy argument to “not apply”. It applies, and is just as valid, even if OP’s student likes to appear on YouTube videos on other occasions (just like in my personal anecdote). The point is that OP has no authority to command his students to publicly appear on the worldwide internet stage that is YouTube as spokespersons for OP’s research, for generic (and very strong) privacy reasons that the students can invoke regardless of whether privacy is truly an issue for them personally. As I said, the student has no duty to explain his objection.

DavidDiaz glad you liked my initial answer, but I see nothing in my follow up that is inconsistent with it. Again, OP’s demand is illegitimate and coercive (though it would make sense as a non-mandatory suggestion), for generic, very strong privacy reasons that apply to all students, making the student’s initial agreement, or the question of whether they disapprove of social media marketing videos to the same extent that I do, irrelevant. As for OP’s lack of empathy with their student’s objections, that’s pretty evident from the question. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

The fact they mentioned it in the interview should probably have given the students the clue that this is part of what their advisor expects them to do. I agree with you in principle as in that I wouldn't, but these students took the PHD positions full well knowing the expectations and are now defying them. This seems to me like a workplace disciplinary matter where OP could end up letting the offending students go for.

@gerrit thank you proving my point that some people are simply unable to understand why other people don’t want to upload videos of themselves on the internet. If you don’t find it distasteful, good for you, but I (and many other people) do, and that’s an objective fact, not something that you can reasonably disagree with.

@DanRomik I've provided more details in my answer. Some people do not wish to appear on video or photography, and that should be respected. Same with department group photo, for example. However, there are other ways to support (social media) outreach, so OP needs to talk to student to find out reasons for objection and if student can support it in another way. Outreach is relevant, but there exist valid reasons to not participate in specific ways. However, student should have honestly stated so when asked at interview stage.

@DanRomik If back massage is a good analogy for one side, rejecting a journal's editor query for a photograph and biography to append to a journal article is as good for the other one. Are you publishing anonymously as well? ;)

@BartoszKP I'm 99.9% sure that if you state "religious reasons" for not wanting a photo appended to a journal article, the editor will respect that and go with a bio only. Almost certainly, even "personal reasons" will do.

@gerrit What about the bio? This is personal information as well. Anyway, that's a bit tongue in cheek from my side ;) This answer is too aggressive and overrated, whereas yours should bubble up to the top instead :)

Wish you would've stuck to what an advisor can and cannot ask of their students. There's no indication about any privacy concerns so you're just extrapolating the student's reason to not participate and then going off based on your personal feelings about privacy. Doesn't add anything to your answer.

@Designerpot privacy concerns are the main problem here, and as I have said several times now, the student owes no one any explanation about the reason for his objection, and benefits from the same rights to privacy as anyone else regardless of his personal views on privacy. By analogy, OP could not demand a student to work in the lab in their underwear, even if that student happens to be an enthusiastic nudist outside of work. So yes, I think the second part of my answer does add something, but you’re free to disagree of course.

I see that asking the student to show their face/voice in the video really ticked you off, but to me it seems it stopped you from looking at the original agreement fully. OP also mentions "short educational materials" and "videos for each publication". My research group does that - and they are silent and subtitled. A sort of a short video-presentation instead of a static one on a conference. They use it for conferences, along poster sessions and with academic visitors. To me it seems reasonable, useful, complimentary to typically published research, non-intrusive and previously agreed upon.

@DanRomik Nowhere in the question are privacy concerns mentioned. So whether the students have privacy concerns, or dislike the amount of time spent on making a video, or have a strong objection against youtube as a platform, is really just something we, as readers, choose to read into the question. It is also absolutely irrelevant to answering this questions since students, as you correctly say, do not have to answer why they chose not to do something extracurricular.

I believe this answer to be useful but needlessly rude. There is no need for the tone used and the answer is less readable (and much longer) because of this.

As someone who is concerned about privacy (and like you, would not want to appear in a Youtube video), I find this answer distasteful and have downvoted it. Nowhere in the question was it stated that the student was doing so out of privacy concerns, and producing videos for educational purposes or to enhance a publication is scarcely a violation of privacy. This answer then goes off on a tangent about "you don't understand people who value privacy" and fails to address the actual problem.