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Why do we assume like and view numbers in social media are correct?

15 points by anon1199022 ↗ HN
since there is no way to confirm externally, how do we know some of the like and view numbers are real, and not inflated by platforms algo ?

8 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 64.1 ms ] thread
deciduously
I personally don't assume any such thing.
Zak
As I recall, TikTok was known to lie about them to give people the impression there were getting more attention there than on competing platforms.
everdrive
Well I think most people already assume they can be inflated. It sounds like you’re suggesting that platforms might just hit a button and “gift” a video 1 million views. Currently, they’re certainly already gamed, but this gaming is done the hard way: promoting videos, putting them on the user’s front page, etc.

I’m not in the industry, but I would imagine that companies cannot just invent view counts out of thin air because it would represent the defrauding of their advertising customers. The views can be “faked” any other way they like, so long as they views actually occurred. Advertisers don’t care if the system was gamed so long as they’re getting eyeballs on ads.

drcongo
The view counts on Twitter were proven faked as soon as they appeared, tweets on completely clean, private accounts with no followers were showing steadily increasing "views" despite the fact that it was impossible to view those tweets.

Facebook's been lying about it for years. https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/17/facebook_ad_reach_law...

everdrive
I had no idea -- thanks for sharing that with me!
hx55
If there are a million how to make apple pie videos and you claim you can rank it, you lie. The whole story is a lie.
drcongo
I've never met a single person who assumes they're correct. They've been proven false many times.