I was able to "buy" 5000 likes for ~$70 with Google Ads on the below video even though it has nothing but a black screen. It even has a >90% like/dislike ratio and >15% like-to-view ratio to appear organic.
It used to be that only views/subscribers can be faked and likes were a way to see real traction, so this came as a surprise to me. A lot of big YouTube channels are using the same trick, especially corporate ones like trailers. You can tell when the number of comments are tiny vs the likes/views and because the numbers surge only temporarily while the ad is running before flatlining.
It seems like a pretty wide practice. My guess is it's not the company heads themselves but the marketing teams that are given millions of dollars, spend a few k buying likes to beat performance goals, and then pocket the difference.
I reported the issue to Google many times, but they ignored and kept saying the likes were real (or run-around denial like "there are different ways to engage a video"). At the very least, they are being complicit here, and there is strong incentive for them not to fix the issue.
For obvious reasons (in case people actually start hitting like on the video and changing the stats), I do not want to make the video public, but if anyone wants to verify, I can send a private link.
X/Twitter also has a similar issue, in that 99% of ad clicks are bots, but I will write more on that later. Like Google, their support also ignored me when I brought it up (in fact, they waited until our subscription expired, then told us we must be subscribed to get support).
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