YouTube kills millions of fake video views

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In an attempt to kill black-hat view count building techniques, YouTube has slashed more than 2 billion views of channels such as Sony BMG, RCA Records and Universal Records. View count manipulating techniques are being dealt with harshly by the video sharing site.  Daily Dot reported about YouTube going on a ‘winter cleaning’ after finding that channels were using 'view building' services to create ‘views’ that never really existed. As reported by the website, Universal’s channel took the biggest hit in this exercise. “According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company's YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its pre-existing tally of 7 billion views Tuesday,” it said. Sony BMG was the second-largest sufferer as it was stripped of more than a staggering 850 million views, bringing the total number of views on its channel to a mere 2.3 million. RCA too was stripped of 159 million views, bringing the channel views total to 120 million. Cracking the whip on fake views Videos too were affected by YouTube’s wield-whipping. UMG’s archive library now only consists of five videos, none of which are actual songs, all less than two minutes long. Sony too fell prey to this cutting and now has no videos, reports Daily Dot. Forums and YouTube channels were filled with complaints by users that their videos and views were taken down as a result of violations of YouTube’s Terms of Service. YouTube confirmed that these videos were indeed taken down. “This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our view count policy,” a Google representative wrote on a forum. Universal told Daily Dot that the incident had actually taken place, but also mentioned that the channel had been lying dormant for a while as they had shifted focus towards their VEVO channel. YouTube is very keen to change things on their website, right from enforcing its Terms of Service strictly to creating a new cleaner UI for better viewing. The most crucial elements are now placed front and centre while viewing a video. The video itself is placed right at the top of the page, whereas the subscribe button, social actions and video information are combined below the player.  YouTube has also made it easy for users to subscribe to channels. The site now has a Guide on the home page that suggests videos based on the ones that a users has liked or subscribed to. This Guide also suggests the latest and greatest channels that the user could like, while also showing them what their friends were sharing across the web.