YouTuber accuses Facebook of cheating to boost video views
Video blogger Hank Green has accused Facebook of lying, cheating and stealing so it can declare itself the most popular video site.
Video blogger Hank Green has accused Facebook of lying, cheating and stealing so it can declare itself the most popular video site.
Video blogger Hank Green has accused Facebook of “lying, cheating and stealing” so it can declare itself the most popular video site.
The social network has been inflating its view numbers and promoting clips uploaded directly to Facebook more aggressively than those posted to the site via YouTube, Green claimed in an article for Medium.
The strategy means that about three times more people will see natively posted content.
“As a creator, it seems like an abuse of their power,” Green said.
He said that a recent study found that 725 of the 1,000 most popular Facebook videos of the first quarter of 2015 were “stolen re-uploads”, accounting for around 17 billion views in that time period.
“This is not insignificant,” he said. “It’s the vast majority of Facebook’s high volume traffic.”
Green also took issue with how Facebook counts a video “view” – after the clip has been playing for just three seconds, whether or not the sound is on. YouTube counts a video view after it has been on for about 30 seconds.
Matt Pakes, a product manager at Facebook, defended the social network yesterday, writing in Medium: “If you have stayed on a video for at least three seconds, it signals to us that you are not simply scrolling through feed and you’ve shown intent to watch that video.”
Green has produced videos for YouTube, NASA and the Discovery Channel.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
More about:
Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...
View resourceThe Merkle B2B 2023 Superpowers Index outlines what drives competitive advantage within the business culture and subcultures that are critical to succ...
View resourceMaking forecasts and predictions in such a rapidly changing marketing ecosystem is a challenge. Yet, as concerns grow around a looming recession and b...
View resourceGenerative AI is rapidly becoming an integral part of marketing, offering the ability to create new content, automate decisions, and derive insights f...
View articleIt doesn’t kill us – it makes us stronger Read More...
View articleAccording to a study by Fospha, Meta is the largest and only channel that can provide the necessary scale for most brands Read More...
View articleIoT technology is changing online marketing, but legal and market forces are making matters complex Read More...
View articleDespite being tanked by the pandemic and testing positive, just a few weeks later my business had one of the strongest financial months of my career. ...
View articleThe pandemic threatened the core of Humanscale’s business model. Here’s how they used DAM technology to target an entirely new market in just two week...
View articleWhat radical changes should advertisers expect in a post-COVID world that is technology-led and rapidly changing? And how should they best prepare the...
View articleVal Vacante highlights the epic growth in contactless payments and how app-free experiences are the ultimate helper for retailers and shoppers Read Mo...
View article
It would have been useful to explain what stolen re-uploads are.
Stealing someone’s video off YouTube and re-uploading it to Facebook.