YouTube cancels billions of video views after finding they had been 'faked' - but were hackers wor

Always knew they were doing this.

I heard about this the other day... both hilarious and disgusting. I knew it was being done, but not quite to THAT extent. I wonder if there's a list floating around of the specific videos themselves that got burned the hardest?

You people are really cruel.
Justin Bieber may not be your cup of tea (sure as shooting isn't mine) but to call him a talentless hack is basically showing off your immaturity. He has more talent (and probably works a damn sight harder) than the lot of you who sit around in your mother's den spouting off hateful things to those who (whether they deserve it or not) are in a position to spread a message.

I don't agree with the music industry. I don't agree with their messages. I don't even like listening to it. But at least I have enough respect to allow them to spread their message, just as everyone should have the ability to. We are here spreading our message. Not everybody agrees with us, but they respect us enough to allow us to do it. Some people give us trouble for it, and we retaliate with our facts, with our knowledge. Most of us. Some of us simply stick out our tongues and say "eat my shorts". Showing off your immaturity.

I know this made no difference to your mental model of your tiny universe. I know next time the chance comes, you will jump out of your seat to call Justin Bieber a talentless hack, because that's just the tiny little person that you are, but, just like you're allowed to call Justin Bieber on his horrible (subjectively speaking, of course) music, I'm allowed to call you out on your horrible (also, subjectively speaking) opinions on him.

Also, if you must know...
John Lee Hooker 4ever

Originally posted by veritascaudex
You people are really cruel.
Justin Bieber may not be your cup of tea (sure as shooting isn't mine) but to call him a talentless hack is basically showing off your immaturity. He has more talent (and probably works a damn sight harder) than the lot of you who sit around in your mother's den spouting off hateful things to those who (whether they deserve it or not) are in a position to spread a message.

I don't agree with the music industry. I don't agree with their messages. I don't even like listening to it. But at least I have enough respect to allow them to spread their message, just as everyone should have the ability to. We are here spreading our message. Not everybody agrees with us, but they respect us enough to allow us to do it. Some people give us trouble for it, and we retaliate with our facts, with our knowledge. Most of us. Some of us simply stick out our tongues and say "eat my shorts". Showing off your immaturity.

I know this made no difference to your mental model of your tiny universe. I know next time the chance comes, you will jump out of your seat to call Justin Bieber a talentless hack, because that's just the tiny little person that you are, but, just like you're allowed to call Justin Bieber on his horrible (subjectively speaking, of course) music, I'm allowed to call you out on your horrible (also, subjectively speaking) opinions on him.

Also, if you must know...
John Lee Hooker 4ever

We are cruel?!

What are you talking about my friend...
No one called Justin Bieber talentless. Where are you getting this information from?

E.

Last night I was sitting in my room, and I could hear my neighbours getting rowdy next door. I ignored it because it didn't really bother me until they turned on their music. I don't know what the song was, but if you've been to a club, you've heard a million songs like it.

So I turn on my amplifier, crank some Jimi Hendrix, velvet underground, talking heads, beatles, pink floyd, led zeppelin, queens of the stone age, leadbelly, nirvana. They turned their music off, and didn't complain so I can only guess they didn't hate it. +1 faith in humanity, the ability to hear isn't so lost on them in the right circumstances (exposure + non-threatening environment - potential of social isolation).

I made a short video showing this a couple of days ago.
Universal music, and sony lost all their videos, BUT their accounts were left open/intact.
Any normal user would have been terminated for inflating views, and clicking their own adverts.

The Social Blade thing shows UMG lose just over 1 billion views, worth £4.4m in ad revenue. Notice that UMG are making only £2 a day now from their 5 videos no one wants to watch.

99% of their videos had fake views, the same as Sony, and more than likely the people who signed Psy Gangnam Style, how many of those 1.1b views are from bots? Id imaging 500m or so.

reply to post by Ephio


Finally!

The only way that crap sells is if they pump it up artificially on the radio too which they do a lot.

What about all of the videos that have LESSENED views, over the last few years have seen many vids that do not get counted, and hold steady at one single number for days, despite many different people viewing.

Not sure i trust youtube at all on these accounts...

reply to post by Ephio


Nobody in this topic used my exact words of talentless hack, but there are at least 3 references to them being 'void of culture' or a general implication of their general lack of artistry.

Which is funny, because who really defines real artistry? And here we are, 30 years after the glorious '80s which brought us Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, all those 'great' bands... you know what they were back then? They were the hipster music. They were the talentless hacks of those days. All they could do was play power chords waah, waah, the people cried, music now sucks, they people cried. And a few decades prior to the '80s in the old-fashioned '50s, and '60s was Elvis and the gang. Black music was becoming a booming thing (and who ever would have guessed it would have blossomed into the beautiful variety of sonic arrangements we have available to us today). Waaah! WAAAH! the people cried, music now is idiotic, they said, it sounds like noise they said.

Do you see a pattern here? Go ahead, try and figure it out... because 30 years from now, most of you might be sitting in a rocking chair with a shotgun in your hand waiting for trespassers so you can ask them the fatal question...
"Do you like Justin Bieber?"

Originally posted by veritascaudex
You people are really cruel.
Justin Bieber may not be your cup of tea (sure as shooting isn't mine) but to call him a talentless hack is basically showing off your immaturity. He has more talent (and probably works a damn sight harder) than the lot of you who sit around in your mother's den spouting off hateful things to those who (whether they deserve it or not) are in a position to spread a message.

I don't agree with the music industry. I don't agree with their messages. I don't even like listening to it. But at least I have enough respect to allow them to spread their message, just as everyone should have the ability to. We are here spreading our message. Not everybody agrees with us, but they respect us enough to allow us to do it. Some people give us trouble for it, and we retaliate with our facts, with our knowledge. Most of us. Some of us simply stick out our tongues and say "eat my shorts". Showing off your immaturity.

I know this made no difference to your mental model of your tiny universe. I know next time the chance comes, you will jump out of your seat to call Justin Bieber a talentless hack, because that's just the tiny little person that you are, but, just like you're allowed to call Justin Bieber on his horrible (subjectively speaking, of course) music, I'm allowed to call you out on your horrible (also, subjectively speaking) opinions on him.

Also, if you must know...
John Lee Hooker 4ever

What the??

First off, no one said anything like that about Bieber. Second, you're totally missing the point. When the industry giants pump millions of dollars into fake youtube hits and bribed radio plays, etc. it's CHEATING THE SYSTEM. I get the "make money at all costs" mentality, but if you get caught cheating, then fall gracefully. They got caught with their pants down doing some questionable practices, plain and simple. If anything YouTube was incredibly light on them since they didn't even close the accounts for such HORRIFIC inflation of views.

The rest of your post was very vague. You don't like the music industry and you don't like listening to it? What is it? And what is their message and our message? Sorry man, you don't make any sense. Although I noticed you registered today and got a few extra stars for an incredibly cryptic post. On a thread about fake music industry views. Hmmm...

reply to post by solarjetman


You make very good points. My username in Latin basically means "truth idiot". I've just found on this website in general that people don't appreciate popular musicians because they 'suck', and then continually attack them and hate on them, pretty much only because it's cool.

As for your question, what is their message? What is our message? "Their" message could be anything at all. "Their" message that I don't agree with is the fact that they industrialized an art. Music isn't about selling records and getting YouTube hits. Music is about expression of what I personally believe is the purest symbolism.

What is our message? Our message could also be anything at all. Our unifying message is that the truth is never what we're told the truth is (by anyone, be it friend or foe). Whether or not many of us even believe in a truth is questionable in itself. As you can see by the very broad topics presented in this website, it is not simply about 'conspiracies', because there are conspiracies within every aspect of the social human condition.

Originally posted by veritascaudex
reply to post by solarjetman

 

You make very good points. My username in Latin basically means "truth idiot". I've just found on this website in general that people don't appreciate popular musicians because they 'suck', and then continually attack them and hate on them, pretty much only because it's cool.

As for your question, what is their message? What is our message? "Their" message could be anything at all. "Their" message that I don't agree with is the fact that they industrialized an art. Music isn't about selling records and getting YouTube hits. Music is about expression of what I personally believe is the purest symbolism.

What is our message? Our message could also be anything at all. Our unifying message is that the truth is never what we're told the truth is (by anyone, be it friend or foe). Whether or not many of us even believe in a truth is questionable in itself. As you can see by the very broad topics presented in this website, it is not simply about 'conspiracies', because there are conspiracies within every aspect of the social human condition.

Okay, well in that case, I think you're actually agreeing with the sentiment here. I can't speak for the website in general, but I think most people in this thread specifically are frustrated that "mainstream music" has lost the expression you are referring to. When every label simply picks tunes, messages and images optimized for maximum profit without giving a damn about what their artists are actually saying or constructively contributing to the world, something gets lost in translation and many people just can't resonate with it. Seeing YouTube adjust the numbers makes us realize that more people than we expected are feeling the same way (these pop songs aren't quite as popular as we are led to believe), so in a way it makes us all smile.

As a musician myself, I couldn't care for Bieber's music but I respect anyone who's made it in this impossibly difficult industry (especially today). He actually seems like a chill guy too. But at the same time, there are other artists I like much, much more than Bieber who simply aren't getting the time of day-- artists using music as that expression of the purest symbolism, putting the art first and having faith that they'll make enough money to be able to keep doing it (we all need to make SOME money, but there is a big difference in mentality here). It's distribution tactics like the YouTube "faking" and radio payola that hog all of the resources and don't allow for these artists to get as much shine as they deserve.

Originally posted by AmberLeaf
I made a short video showing this a couple of days ago.
Universal music, and sony lost all their videos, BUT their accounts were left open/intact.
Any normal user would have been terminated for inflating views, and clicking their own adverts.

The Social Blade thing shows UMG lose just over 1 billion views, worth £4.4m in ad revenue. Notice that UMG are making only £2 a day now from their 5 videos no one wants to watch.

99% of their videos had fake views, the same as Sony, and more than likely the people who signed Psy Gangnam Style, how many of those 1.1b views are from bots? Id imaging 500m or so.

Nice video!

Yeah it sort of makes you think about the Gangnam Style video lol. Who knows how many fake views it has. :S

Ah! I knew there was something wrong, when my estimated income went from 12 Cent down to 10 Cent! You people gave me too many fake hits, I guess.

I have always figured that there are people out there who are paid to develop bots that inflate the view count of videos. And not just videos, but other things on other sites as well. It would be more economical to develop software to do this sort of thing for you, rather than having to pay a handful of people to create multiple accounts manually, and then view the content they are supposed to be inflating. I don't know if Youtube considers it a "view" if the same IP address watches the same video multiple times. If not, inflating the numbers would be extremely easy, as a script could continually refresh the page, upping the view count with every reload.

But I would assume that Youtube would not count views this way, and instead would give only 1 view per IP address...Or maybe there is a certain time frame on counting the same IP address multiple times. Either way, it is possible to inflate the view count, although it would be easier if the method I mentioned first could be utilized. Crazy stuff to say the least. Why would anyone want to jack up the views for some celebrity music video just for fun? Maybe it could happen occasionally, but we are not talking about just 1 video here. So obviously someone is being paid to do this, and likely there are multiple people behind this scam. Maybe they did not hire outside people, but instead have a good programmer on the payroll. Or multiple programmers, considering there is other work that they are involved in that would require such skills.

Originally posted by Ephio


Nice video!

Yeah it sort of makes you think about the Gangnam Style video lol. Who knows how many fake views it has. :S

I can't say I agree. The fact is, Gangnam Style is hilarious, and catchy. I myself have watched it several times. That one is definitely looking like an almost legit # of views to me.

Originally posted by jephers0n

Originally posted by Ephio


Nice video!

Yeah it sort of makes you think about the Gangnam Style video lol. Who knows how many fake views it has. :S

I can't say I agree. The fact is, Gangnam Style is hilarious, and catchy. I myself have watched it several times. That one is definitely looking like an almost legit # of views to me.

Just cause you're a sheep dressed as a human doesn't mean it's legit.
I find the music offensive and boring.

Finally they do something right! Thank you Google!
I hate the recording industry as it is nowadays. They screw over everyone they work with! No one at the Big Four (EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group) has any talent anymore! The Big Four don't care about talent, they care about money. The labels are no longer made up of musicians running the show, but lawyers, and not a single one with any musical experience whatsoever. They know nothing other than how to run a business and screw people over.
Therefore, I stopped listening to most music from the Big Four a long time ago, and now I mostly listen to independent and Christian musicians. If I ever do listen to music from the Big Four, it's copied from a friend or a CD from the library. I refuse to give money to the bullies.
Glad to see that Google agrees.