How Facebook is

Stealing a billion views

 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O A YouTube video that accuses Facebook of "stealing
billions of views" is going viral and receiving a ton of
support from content creators and prominent tech
executives.

O The video, created by the Munich-based YouTube

channel and design studio Kurzgesagt shortly after
Facebook announced it was generating 8 billion video
views each day. Kurzgesagt's video has gotten more
than 1.1 million YouTube views in that time.
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Here are the main accusations
of the fast-paced, five-minute
animated video:
O In the first quarter of 2015, 725
of the 1,000 most viewed
videos on Facebook were
"stolen" from the original
content creators and re-
uploaded to Facebook's native
video player..
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Kurzgesagt said this amounted
to 17 billion stolen views in the
period
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
The video says freebooting, or
the stealing of videos, is
happening more and more
often. It's bad for content
creators as they receive next to
no exposure or revenue for
their videos - "only the thief
and Facebook profit."
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views

O Facebook its algorithm so

the videos uploaded to its
player are preferred to
YouTube links. In other
words, you're more likely to
see a Facebook video in
your News Feed than a
YouTube video.
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Kurzgesagt says Facebook
"cheats" because a video "view"
on Facebook counts after three
seconds of a video is played,
even if the video is autoplaying
and on mute as a user scrolls
through his or her News Feed.
(YouTube doesn't disclose its view
metrics..
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O With video ads, it counts a
video view as when a user
engages with the content, or if
a user has watched 30
seconds or more, or if
someone has watched to the
end of a shorter video
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O The video says the
process of claiming
copyright infringement is
clunky compared with
YouTube's Content ID
system. And it complains
that the thief "doesn't
have to fear negative
consequences at all." The
narrator adds: "It just feels
like a violation to be
treated like that."
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views

O Facebook declined to
comment on the
Kurzgesagt video,
however it has publicly
addressed the issue of
freebooting on its
platform before.
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Facebook does use a
system called Audible
Magic to detect copyright-
infringing videos, and it
has a system in which
users can flag freebooted
videos. And the company
says users who make
repeated copyright
infringements may find
their accounts suspended.
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Facebook published a blog post
about video management, in
which it mentioned freebooting,
in August. The company said it
had heard from some video
publishers that there were ways
in which it could be doing a
better job and that it was taking
steps in response. In addition to
employing Audible Magic,
Facebook has been building
video-matching technology that
will be available to a "subset of
creators."
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Facebook was
challenged over the
issue of video
copyright
infringement by
popular YouTube star
Hank Green back in
August, in a Medium
post entitled "Theft,
Lies, and Facebook
Video."
 How Facebook is Stealing a
billion views
O Nevertheless, freebooting is still
clearly a problem on Facebook,
and many prominent content
creators and executives have
been voicing their support for
the Kurzgesagt video and
sharing it on Twitter. People
have been complaining about
copyright infringement on
Facebook, and the celebrities
who have engaged in it, for
months - and those complaints
aren't dying down.