3 HN users recommended this commentary5 months2015–2019score 5.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN cites it to explain freebooting, Facebook's inflated view metrics and why Content ID matters for small creators.
Kurzgesagt argues that Facebook's claimed 8 billion daily video views are inflated by freebooting, meaning re-uploads of creators' videos. It describes how this harms independent creators.
“This video changed my opinion on Content ID when I saw it last year” (HN, 2016)
1 strong recommendations · 5 recommendations · 5 citations · 3 critical · Commentary · news from the time
While you're right that Google's implementation of Content ID doesn't handle fair use well, Content ID is critical for indie creators. Facebook's lack of protections lead to tons of lost revenue for them (and for indies, it matters!). This video changed my opinion on Content ID when I saw it last year: [this video]
Explains why Content ID matters for indie creators.
"How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views" - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell exposed this with detailed analysis and evidence. Watch it here => [this video] This is neither a bug nor a "mistake". It's straight up fraud. Fraud because Facebook uses these false #s to prove to their advertizing clients that they are getting a HUGE ROI, when they really aren't. Also the investors and analysts bump up their ratings and the stock goes higher and higher on false ad view #s. By counting a view as a legitmate view after the video plays only for 3 seconds, their "algorithm" counted billions of views even when the user has not even seen it, because Auto-play is enabled by default and you have to opt-out / disable it and no-one does it. It takes a person roughly 4 seconds to scroll off their feed as they quickly "scan" their friends posts.
Detailed analysis of Facebook inflating video view counts.
Yes. straight up fraud. "How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views" - Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell exposed this with detailed analysis and evidence. Watch it here => [this video]
Detailed analysis and evidence of Facebook's inflated views.
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 => [this video] 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.
[this video] This does a very good job of explaining how small content creators are practically powerless now on the web in terms of protecting their content being stolen.
Explains how small creators are powerless against content theft.
A lot of European media sees their content stolen and re-uploaded by anonymous users on YT, FB, etc... FB in particular have not responded to this and thus content creators lose a lot of views and money. This video sums it up nicely: [this video]
Sums up content theft and lost creator revenue on Facebook.
This video claims that Facebook's lack of a content ID system is harmful to individual / small content creators as their videos are copied and go viral with no compensation to the content creator. [this video] The video paints Google and content ID in a very positive light. If what you're saying is true, where does this video go wrong?
Argues Facebook's lack of content ID harms small creators.
What do people think of this video? [this video] IMO Content ID is essential for a healthy video creator ecosystem. Google's implementation may give the big media companies too much power, but for indie creators it is crucial. Facebook, on the other hand, seems to not care about video piracy at all and as a result small creators suffer.
Shows small creators suffer from Facebook's indifference to video piracy.
That reminds me, did they ever address the Click Farm problem that was essentially rendering likes and views worthless for many advertisers? [link] Or the rampant Freebooting? [this video]
Guys this is meant for platforms that continuously allow users to upload fully copyrighted stuff, offer no good takedown and just point to the users when asked. "We're a platform so the user is responsible". Thousand, maybe millions, of Youtube videos by small channels are re-uploaded to FB everyday and essentially stolen. Watch this, for example: [this video] This law just says: ehm no Facebook, you ARE responsible for this, and you can't just say 'talk to the user / page who stole it'. The way Reddit and others interpret it is just because they don't want to be legally beholden to laws that protect people smaller than they are. And they're calling it a 'ban on memes' to get people online to protest it like useful idiots. No one read the texts but everyone is angry.
Consider as well that Facebook steals money from content creators who really need the money . See [link] & [this video] Also, the idea of having Facebook at the cost of giving up your privacy to this behemoth, and more importantly, at the cost of this company exploiting your cognitive biases to get you to buy things hardly seems conducive to a spirit of bettering the world.
Facebook has a history of fraud in their other services. Veritasium fell victim to FB's scams as a publisher a couple years ago[1]. I know first-hand that Facebook's advertising model is deeply flawed. 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. They also have a history of encouraging video fraud[2][3]. [1] [link] [2] [link] [3] [this video]
Facebook is the biggest scam for most businesses. 1) They've pulled bait and switch when they decided to charge to reach users that have already liked your page. Most of those users liked your page because you've posted a link to FB on your site. 2) Click fraud is rampant [1] 3) They make money on copyrighted videos + ripping off YouTube content creators [2] [1] [link] [2] [this video]
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