YouTube Question Subscribing to Views Bots

[Lechuguilla]

Why does YouTube allow content creators to make use of YT views bots?

When YT recommends a video for me to watch that was posted just 6 hours ago, and the video has 75,000 views, I cringe. The video obviously has not had that many genuine views in six hours. Instead, creator has subscribed to a service that employs bots to boost views, likes, subscribers, and so on, giving an unrealistic, misleading, and deceptive idea of the video's popularity.

I generally will not watch a video that I perceive as having received bots to boost views. And I never "like" such videos.

Why does YouTube allow the use of such seemingly unethical practices? And I am well aware that respondents to this question likely have used bots themselves.

Lechuguilla

 

[MediaMan]

When YT recommends a video for me to watch that was posted just 6 hours ago, and the video has 75,000 views, I cringe. The video obviously has not had that many genuine views in six hours.

For larger channels that's very doable.

 

[Lechuguilla]

That did not answer my question.

Why does YT allow the use of external bots, for a subscription price, to mechanically boost the number of video views?

 

[MediaMan]

Where did you find that YT allows it? Views can come from users who don't even have YT accounts so the bots from those are much harder to stop compared to subs from bots which is much easier to track and just remove those accounts from YT.

 

[Lechuguilla]

Here's what I am talking about.

10 Best YouTube Bots for Boosting Views, Likes & Subscribers - The Daily Iowan

One of the bot subscription pages asks:
"Can Bots increase YouTube views"
Then it answers, with:
"Yes, bots have proven to be very effective at increasing YouTube views".

Two of these subscription websites are listed below. You choose the "plan" you want, then pay the website money. In return, the website will mechanically assign certain amount of "views" to your video. But no individual has actually watched your video. It's just a bot (a software program) that increases your "views".

One such website is called "Bulkoid", at

Bulkoid - Buy Followers, Likes and Views - 100% Real, Active & Safe

The quickest and easiest to use platform to buy Subscribers, Views, Likes and many other Social Media Services to help you grow your audience

bulkoid.com

Another such website is called Viral HQ, at

ViralHQ.net

x

viralhq.net

 

[The Kitchen Gamer]

They actually don't allow the use of bots as it's against their TOS so when bot views and subs are found they are removed. This is an on going battle between YouTube and the bots.

 

[Lechuguilla]

Thanks to MediaMan and to The Kitchen Gamer, for their willingness to respond to my question.

I did read YT's TOS. The relevant part seems to be:
"You [the YT user] are not allowed to: ... access the Service using any automated means (such as robots, botnets, or scrapers) except: (a) in the case of public search engines in accordance with YouTube's robots.txt file ...". [I do not know what that file refers to, but the reference to "botnets" at least sounds more relevant]. Also, a subsequent paragraph reads:

"You are not allowed to: cause or encourage any inaccurate measurements of genuine user engagement with the Service, including by paying people or providing them with incentives to increase a video's views, likes, or dislikes, or to increase a channel's subscribers, or otherwise manipulate metrics in any manner." [Now that really does sound like a YT prohibition on paying a bot service to artificially increase video metrics]. Yet ...

The FAQ of one of those bot services asks and then responds to a question, specifically:

"can I get banned for buying YouTube views, likes, or subscribers?" Response is:
"No, you cannot be banned for buying our YouTube services ..." [Sigh]

My reason for starting this thread and asking this question is that in the genres of videos I tend to watch the most, I see some videos that have seemingly an outrageously high number of views, for the short amount of time the video has been posted at YT. I find such high number of views suspect. On the other hand ...

At least it "appears" that YT's TOS does "seem" to prohibit such artificial (and fraudulent) boosting of views and other metrics. I guess I'll just have to trust that YT will eventually crack down on such fraudulent behavior even though I'll never know when that happens or be aware of the process for any given video that I watch.

Again, thanks MediaMan and The Kitchen Gamer for your help.

 

[MediaMan]

I guess I'll just have to trust that YT will eventually crack down on such fraudulent behavior even though I'll never know when that happens or be aware of the process for any given video that I watch.

Yep, nothing you can do so don't even worry about it. For certain content creators who try to exploit YouTube, it's no big deal to lose a channel due to fraudulent behavior. But for serious channels (like the majority here) it's certainly not worth considering purchasing fake views, subs, etc.