"Fake Views" On Pakatan's Live Video Turns Out To Be Facebook's Crossposting Feature
Dr Noor Nirwandy said its impossible for multiple Facebook pages to have the same number of viewers at the same time.
By Justin Tan — 08 May 2018, 04:05 PM
On Monday, 7 May, Barisan Nasional claimed Pakatan Harapan bought Facebook live video viewers to give the impression that the opposition party has strong public support
According to Berita Harian, Umno Youth deputy chief Khairul Azwan Harun said Pakatan Harapan has been buying Facebook Live viewers to create a perception that they are more popular on social media.
Khairul who was joined by BN strategic communications deputy director Eric See-To told media that the recent viewership on live streams of PH ceramah mega was questionable, saying four different live events had the exact same amount of viewers the whole time.
See-To said that agencies are selling 200,000 social media viewers for RM600,000 and it would cost Pakatan Harapan RM30 million to buy 10 million Facebook live viewers for Dr. Mahathir final campaign speech later tonight, 8 May at 10pm.
The revelation comes after Universiti Teknologi Mara’s media psychological war expert Dr Noor Nirwandy Mat Noordin claimed that it is impossible for three different Facebook pages to have the same number of viewers at the same time
As reported by New Straits Times, Nirwandy said he detected the manipulation during a recent election campaign speech in Jerlun, Kedah.
He said, "The three channels (pages) has similar numbers in viewership. If we look carefully into the speech in Jerlun, there are 14,000 people watching the event.
"Which means, there are 14,000 viewers for each of the FB page at the same time. Logically speaking, do we watch one video on three different pages at the same time?"
Nirwandy said there are websites offering services to increase the number of viewers on FB Live
According to him, the services are available as low as USD14 (RM55) for 100 viewers up to as a high as USD134 (RM530) for 1,000 live users.
He added, "You will only need to upload your link, pay, and you will have viewers for your live video."
Meanwhile, netizens including BBC's head of editorial strategy Owen Williams said the number of viewers is accumulated from all the pages and it's called "crossposting"
According to Facebook, live crossposting allows a page to post another publisher's live video broadcast without needing to upload or share it directly
Only broadcasts created via the Live API (Publisher tools and facebook.com/live/create) are eligible for live crossposting.
Facebook said, "Each live crosspost is treated as a separate broadcast on each page. Comments and reactions from your page's broadcast would not appear in another page's crossposted post. Viewers are unable to see the origin of the live broadcast."
