In a surprising move by YouTube, the most watched video sharing site on the internet, the Google owned company has slashed billions of views off of videos it considers having obtained those numbers via shady means.
The largest channel to suffer from the number cull is record label Universal, which has lost a staggering 1,015,800,118 views! However, our Diva's didn't come off too well either, with Britney Spears and Beyonce's videos dropping 462,567,893 and 151,445,205 views respectively, placing them at number 3 and 10 of the channels most penalised for fake views.
But why would anyone want to fake views? Well, according to the Huffington Post- and common sense- having a higher view count will make "clips appear far more popular, increase their exposure and draw advertising revenue".
But on a more grassroots level, the amount of views are often cited as a last resort by fans/"stans" to prove an artist's star power and general relevance when other indicators of success-ie sales/hits- are currently scarce.
Other Diva's on the list include:
12 YouTubeshakira -137,394,924
15 AvrilLavigne -124,277,862
18 JordinSparks -107,013,443
19 kellyclarkson -95,918,188
Check out the full list at Socialblade.
But what do you guys think about this? Is this even an issue for anyone bar Google and it's advertisers?
