Facebook was the reason that medium-sized websites had to close. This is how the falsified metrics affected and having to upload the videos to Facebook.
For years the websites have been constantly uploading their audiovisual content to Facebook, It was said that it was the best and almost the only way to grow and generate advertising income but recently it was seen it was all a hoax and they falsified the metrics, in addition to not giving hardly any advertising revenue. Adam Conover, a former employee at College Humor, commented on his Twitter account how creativity in Facebook metrics affected the company.
Many metrics but zero benefits
As Adam Conover says: «My old employer, CollegeHumor; posted all of its content to Facebook. To beat YouTube, Facebook faked incredible viewership numbers, so CH turned to FB. So did Funny or Die, like many others. The result: a once thriving internet comedy industry was decimated. A $ 40 million fine is ridiculous. Close Facebook.
When I joined College Humor, fans watched the videos on OUR WEBSITE. That means we sold the ads and controlled the metrics. We had an excellent ad sales team and created custom videos for major brands. YouTube served primarily to drive traffic to the web. It was a real business! We posted links to FB, of course, but the links led to our website! I specifically remember the fateful day someone said, 'You have to look at the numbers native videos get on Facebook. They are incredible!'. It was too good to pass up! So, we started posting videos natively on Facebook.
The problem: there is no way to monetize. In fact, instead of having viewers visit OUR website and see ads, Facebook's model is to CHARGE US for reaching our fans. Site traffic plummeted. So did ad rates, and therefore budgets for videos. Our FB views were amazing! But now we know they were a lie. The result: the beautiful ecosystem of indie comedy websites that represented a new emerging middle class of content creation has shrunk and in many places has collapsed. All due to spoofed Facebook viewer data. Oh, and all the other shady things they did. Some facts: YouTube was not the giant that swallowed the internet in those days. YouTube may well have gutted the business in exactly the same way. But at the time we thought it was very evident that the real change was going to Facebook.«
Source: Adam Conover's Twitter
