My former employer CollegeHumor did this. In order to beat YouTube, Facebook faked incredible viewership numbers, so CH pivoted to FB. So did Funny or Die, many others. The result: A once-thriving online comedy industry was decimated. A $40m fine is laughable; shut Facebook down.
A little more context: when I joined CH, fans watched videos on OUR SITE. That meant that we sold the ads & controlled the metrics. We had a killer ad sales team, and made custom videos for major brands. YouTube was mosty just to drive traffic to the site. It was a real business!
We posted links to FB, of course, but the links led to our site! I specifically remember the fateful day someone said “You have to see the numbers native videos get on Facebook. They’re INSANE.” Too good to pass up! So we started posting videos natively to Facebook instead.
The problem: no way to monetize. In fact, instead of viewers coming to OUR site & seeing ads, Facebook’s model is to CHARGE YOU for access to your fans. Site traffic plummeted. So did ad rates, and thus video budgets. Our FB views were awesome!! But we now know those were a lie.
The result: the beautiful constellation of independent comedy sites that represented a new emerging middle class of content creation shrunk and in many places collapsed. All because of Facebook’s falsified viewer data (oh, and all the other shady shit they did)
A few provisos: YouTube was not the internet-swallowing behemoth it became in those days. It’s quite possible that YouTube would have eviscerated the business in exactly the same way. But it was very apparent at the time that the real shift was Facebook.
Finally: despite FB’s fuckery, CH has never stopped. Their new site is called @dropout. If you love independent comedy and want to support the people who make it, subscribe and watch the hilarious shit they’re making. It’s better and weirder than ever.
@dropout For more on how tech monopolies are ruining the internet and killing smaller companies in the crib, listen to my interview with @profgalloway on @FactuallyPod - he lays it out in searing terms. earwolf.com/episode/the-in…
