Youtube strips 2 billion fake video views from Rihanna, Justin Bieber and others

YOUTUBE chiefs have stripped two billion “views” from pop videos on the site amid fears figures were faked to hike stars’ profiles.

Music label Universal — whose acts include Rihanna and teen smash Justin Bieber — lost a billion views.
Sony, who boast Alicia Keys, Rita Ora and Labrinth on their books, were hit by an 850 million drop in a single day.
Meanwhile Michael Jackson’s feed had 287 million views knocked off and Beyonce’s channel lost 151 million the same day.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by any of the stars — or evidence suggesting the labels were involved.
The move was prompted by a crackdown on artificially-inflated figures on the video site, which is owned by Google.
Hackers are known to ramp up the number of “hits” for videos to make the films appear more popular on the site. A Google spokesman said: “This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy.”
YouTube has 800 million users a month. It is seen as a benchmark for artists’ popularity and an indicator of chart success.
Many of the changes came into action on December 17, according to independent YouTube statistics counter SocialBlade. 
Source: The Sun

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