74edc4f1f314192a30dd535a8be1b086
Gaming YouTube for Fun and Profit
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
LAST month we showed that "YouTube is Becoming Mostly SPAM" and we recently mentioned ways to bypass Google's ads/spying. That does not compensate for the underlying videos however. Many of them are spammy (like webspam with video as medium of choice), typically without any disclosure/s, and they're gaming the video-centric search results (akin to SEO).
It gets even worse when it comes to the so-called 'Linux' Foundation, e.g. Spamnil claiming to have 20,000 subscribers in YouTube while he can barely get 20 views on his videos [1, 2] (too difficult to overlook this anomaly).
Fake "social" "media" like Twitter lets people literally purchase fake "followers" and in YouTube companies buy ads disguised as news, or marketing spam disguised as honest information from "dormitory bros". Fakes are also OK with them. They just need to make themselves seem popular. The "unlike" button was removed, so gaming of reviews is far too easy. It's like AstroTurfing.
It's not entirely unknown that many of the so-called self-labeled 'influencers' are corporate spam, shilling products and selling audiences to them. In the video above I focus on one particular example, to which I devoted about 15 minutes. There are many more examples like it, sometimes resulting in bans. The self-labeled 'influencers' jump to each other's defence, trying to protect the practice. At whose expense do they do their 'influencing'?
As one person has just put it in our IRC network, "they're pawns for the highest bidders, ready to shill at command. GulagTube turned from a hobby to a "job" where you strive to earn the most money even if it means selling out." ⬆