YouTube Cancels Billions Of Video Views After Finding They Had Been 'Faked'
December 28, 2012, 11 years ago
According to the UK's Mail Online, the world's biggest recording companies have been stripped of two billion YouTube hits after the website cracked down on alleged 'fake viewers'.
Universal lost a total of one billion views in the video site’s biggest ever crackdown on artificially inflated figures.
Sony was second hardest hit, losing more than 850million views in a single day.
The dramatic cuts came as YouTube conducted a crackdown on fake views, but music industry sources have blamed it on housekeeping related to the migration of their videos across different channels.
The unprecedented move left Universal with just five videos on the site - none of which were music - and Sony with just three.
"This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy," YouTube announced.
It marks a huge commercial blow to all the artists involved as YouTube is now the web's most important outlet for music videos
Over four billion hours of video are watched by over 800million unique visitors to the site each month.
Read more at Mail Online.
