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Facebook Fraud

Veritasium argues that Facebook's ad revenue relies partly on fake likes, after paying to promote his page and gaining tens of thousands of followers in developing countries who never engaged. He shares his experiment and cites other cases.

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Why HN readers recommended it

Frequently cited as the source for claims about click farms and fake likes in Facebook advertising, though some argue its methodology was flawed.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
Veritasium
Topic
facebook ad fraud
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
7
HN mentions in dataset
20
Recommendation years in dataset
2014–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • There's a good analysis for this phenomenon: [VIDEO] It was posted on HN a while back. The gist is that there's a high chance that your ad was clicked by click farms, even though you bought it legitimately from facebook (in an effort to fool …

    simias on Hacker News · 2014-04
    In Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

  • Yes. Here's a video (by youtube user Veritasium) that walks through an experiment and explanation, for those who are interested. [VIDEO]

    Riseed on Hacker News · 2014-04
    In Facebook CPC – Don't Waste Your Money

  • Veritasium on youtube has a couple of videos breaking down the numbers - not only do you have to pay to get views now, but the views delivered above and beyond what you usually get are fraudulent. He showed the usage of his page beforehand, …

    vacri on Hacker News · 2014-04
    In Facebook earnings gain as ad sales surge 82%; CFO is stepping down

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.