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YouTube Drops 2 Billion Fake Music Industry Views

Posted by samzenpus on from the cure-for-bieber-fever dept.

An anonymous reader writes "YouTube has dropped 2 billion fake music industry views and their offending videos. From the article: 'Google made good on its promise to weed out views inflated by artificial means last week, according to Daily Dot. Record company sites impacted included titans like Universal Music Group, which reportedly lost 1 billion of its 7 billion views, and Sony, who lost 850 million views. The cuts affected marquee names like Rhianna, Beyonce and Justin Bieber. YouTube said in a statement that the figures had been deliberately, artificially inflated. 'This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our view count policy,' the company, which is owned by Google, wrote.'"

4 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Same old tactics by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back in the day it was payola to radio djs and buying back your own records in the stores.

    Now it's scripted youtube visits.

    Same tactics from the producers, but also same behavior from consumers who have to know if something is popular before adopting it.
    I suggest not looking at counters when choosing stuff for yourself.

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    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  2. Joe Jobbing of the future? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That suggests a way to suppress videos that some object to. Just pump them up by a few thousand with obviously faked views and let Google pull the video and ban the account.

  3. Re:-Conflicted by SternisheFan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well if you can't blame them for being dishonest, what does that say about *your* character, or lack of it?

  4. Re:*phew* by AndyKron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "NASA Johnson Style" ("Gangnam Style" Parody) was not affect either. Thank goodness! I could even watch it a billion more times! http://youtu.be/zulxSCb4ZVk