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This is not new, and I've spoken about this here before. Facebook used fraudulent methods to artificially inflate their view counts, and pedelled those fake and

This is not new, and I've spoken about this here before. Facebook used fraudulent methods to artificially inflate their view counts, and pedelled those fake and grossly exagerrated #s for "eyeballs" to the unsuspecting advertizers. "How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views" - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell exposed this with detailed analysis and evidence. Watch it here => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q I contracted with their Ad team for a few months, and can't say more for NDA reasons, hence I am pointing you to publicly available media / expose.

tyre 10y ago
I watched the video you linked to, which is mostly about people who rip content from YouTube and upload it to Facebook. The people who view the pirated content are still viewing content on FB. That isn't "artificially inflat[ing] their view counts." Those are real views, which is what advertisers are paying for, even if what they are viewing is stolen. The point about counting 3 seconds of auto-play as a view is problematic, unless advertisers know that is what they are paying for. Maybe 3 seconds is enough for someone to glance at it and at least read the brand name in their mind, which does seem to count as an "impression".
- Ralfp 10y ago
  Bit into the video they mention explictly that "Facebook is cheating" and "they autoplay and count 3 seconds (even with no audio on) as view", meaning that if you are scrolling trough your feed slowly enough, you count as viewer, event if you don't.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    > "they autoplay and count 3 seconds (even with no audio on) as view" Yes. Exactly this. And a few more 'hacks' the 'Zuck' way ... :)
- gthtjtkt 10y ago
  I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions leading to mostly fake likes and views from click farms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag > When I paid to promote my page I gained 80,000 followers in developing countries who didn't care about Veritasium (but I wasn't aware of this at the time). They drove my reach and engagement numbers down, basically rendering the page useless. > I thought I would demonstrate that the same thing is still happening now by creating Virtual Cat (http://www.facebook.com/MyVirtualCat http://www.facebook.com/MyVirtualCat). I was surprised to discover something worse - false likes are coming from everywhere, including Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. So even those carefully targeting their campaigns are likely being duped into spending real money on fake followers. Then when they try to reach their followers they have to pay again.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    > I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag Yes, this one also. If anyone thinks this is a 'Conspiracy theory', you can confirm or refute it yourself for less than 50$, the way I did and the way the BBC reporter in this above video did. After I left the Ad Team, and horrified at what I saw as widespread fraud, I registered a throwaway domain, put some viral videos from youtube, injected google analytics on the site / blog, bought a pre-paid visa card for 50$ (so facebook doesn't keep auto charging my card) and 'promoted' my blog posts shared on a Facebook page I set up. Just like the BBC author, I noticed most of my 'Likes' on the FB page were from Indonesia, Pakistan, and many from Vietnam. And I checked some of the profiles, and they either appeared down right fake (i.e. no activity other than liking a 1000+ FB pages, or they weren't active since like 2011 or 12. Worse still, for the pages I did promote - i.e. blog posts shared on FB wall for 5$ / day, I barely got 10 click-throughs to the actual post, but the Ad analytics said I "reached 600 / 700 something" viewers. WTF does that mean??? ( I know what it means, that they "displayed" it in their feed) But how does this help any one, think small businesses, grow their brand or business??)

tyre 10y ago

I watched the video you linked to, which is mostly about people who rip content from YouTube and upload it to Facebook. The people who view the pirated content are still viewing content on FB. That isn't "artificially inflat[ing] their view counts." Those are real views, which is what advertisers are paying for, even if what they are viewing is stolen. The point about counting 3 seconds of auto-play as a view is problematic, unless advertisers know that is what they are paying for. Maybe 3 seconds is enough for someone to glance at it and at least read the brand name in their mind, which does seem to count as an "impression".

Ralfp 10y ago
Bit into the video they mention explictly that "Facebook is cheating" and "they autoplay and count 3 seconds (even with no audio on) as view", meaning that if you are scrolling trough your feed slowly enough, you count as viewer, event if you don't.
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > "they autoplay and count 3 seconds (even with no audio on) as view" Yes. Exactly this. And a few more 'hacks' the 'Zuck' way ... :)
gthtjtkt 10y ago
I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions leading to mostly fake likes and views from click farms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag > When I paid to promote my page I gained 80,000 followers in developing countries who didn't care about Veritasium (but I wasn't aware of this at the time). They drove my reach and engagement numbers down, basically rendering the page useless. > I thought I would demonstrate that the same thing is still happening now by creating Virtual Cat (http://www.facebook.com/MyVirtualCat http://www.facebook.com/MyVirtualCat). I was surprised to discover something worse - false likes are coming from everywhere, including Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia. So even those carefully targeting their campaigns are likely being duped into spending real money on fake followers. Then when they try to reach their followers they have to pay again.
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag Yes, this one also. If anyone thinks this is a 'Conspiracy theory', you can confirm or refute it yourself for less than 50$, the way I did and the way the BBC reporter in this above video did. After I left the Ad Team, and horrified at what I saw as widespread fraud, I registered a throwaway domain, put some viral videos from youtube, injected google analytics on the site / blog, bought a pre-paid visa card for 50$ (so facebook doesn't keep auto charging my card) and 'promoted' my blog posts shared on a Facebook page I set up. Just like the BBC author, I noticed most of my 'Likes' on the FB page were from Indonesia, Pakistan, and many from Vietnam. And I checked some of the profiles, and they either appeared down right fake (i.e. no activity other than liking a 1000+ FB pages, or they weren't active since like 2011 or 12. Worse still, for the pages I did promote - i.e. blog posts shared on FB wall for 5$ / day, I barely got 10 click-throughs to the actual post, but the Ad analytics said I "reached 600 / 700 something" viewers. WTF does that mean??? ( I know what it means, that they "displayed" it in their feed) But how does this help any one, think small businesses, grow their brand or business??)