Two billion views on videos from the likes of Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Beyonce have been stripped from YouTube after the site cracks down on alleged fake viewers.
Bosses behind the site have conducted an audit of its viewing figures aimed at combating 'black hat' view count-building techniques. 'Black Hat' refers to the practice of artificially building up the numbers of views or likes on a YouTube video - enabling hackers to make clips appear far more popular than they really are and increase their exposure on the site.
Rihanna and Bieber's label Universal was the hardest hit, losing a billion views whilst Sony, who boast Alicia Keys, Rita Ora and Labrinth were hit by an 850 million drop in just one day.
The Daily Dot reported how many of the channels affected had also had videos deleted. Universal, which previously had dozens of clips on its channel, has had its content slashed to just five videos- none of which are music videos.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by any of the stars — or evidence suggesting the labels were involved in the fakery. A Google spokesman said in a statement: “This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy.”
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