GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform that claims to have helped people raise over $30 billion in donations since 2010. But political sociologists Martin Lukk and Erik Schneiderhan assert in their book “GoFailMe: The Unfulfilled Promise of Digital Crowdfunding,” that behind the success stories, there are even more devastating stories of failure. 

The pair argue that while many struggling individuals have been able to raise funds to survive trying circumstances such as fires, cancers, relocation for medical emergencies and other tragedies, the platform hides campaigns that don’t succeed. 

GoFundMe features successful stories on its front page, and the platform expanded with a podcast titled “True Stories of Good People,” where it spreads aspirational ideas about the company. Lukk and Schneiderhan question the ethics behind hiding the stories of unsuccessful fundraising campaigns.