Photo of Justin Bieber
In the wake of a controversy over fake music streams of a French Montana song, the Instagram account of Justin Bieber instructed fans on how to game Spotify and iTunes in order to help Bieber’s new single rise to the top of the charts.
In a now-deleted five-panel post, the singer — or more likely one of his representatives, as the caption speaks of Bieber in the third-person — re-posted a fan’s guide for boosting “Yummy” on the leading digital music platforms.
Along with the post, came the following caption: “Justin really wants that #1 and he is really excited about it as he said yesterday in his livestream. If you don’t want to do any of this it’s totally fine, just ignore the post. ✌️This is tips for the people who actually wants to do an extra effort!”
Among the tips listed in the post was the suggestion that users create a playlist with “Yummy” set to repeat and then stream this continuously overnight.
The post further instructed people not to mute the song but play it softly while they slept. Those living outside the United States were also instructed to use a U.S.-based VPN when streaming the song. This is because Billboard only counts streams from U.S. IP addresses when computing its charts.
The post additionally asked users to buy the single multiple times from iTunes and to only link to the song’s YouTube video on social media instead of re-posting the video there.
While some may dislike what Bieber and/or his people are doing, they are not the first ones to try to game the system in this manner. A similar campaign was reportedly initiated to help boost Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times.”
In 2018, one BTS fan group went one step further: they allegedly distributed over 1,000 Spotify logins to help the group’s Love Yourself: Tear album.
I’m not even surpirsed! cheaters, fakers and lazy people rewarded is common , t’s so 2010’s
decades ago, (if that ever happened), people would at least cheat quitely, but
nowadays, they ain’t even ashamed doing it in public.
There’s no differecence between this kind of behavior and rogue traders whom
put down the economy circa 2008
Is there any regulator to check about that? artists caught red handed should be removed from charts.
Back in the day his fans used to do that and even buy multiple cd copies. I wonder if his staff didnt infiltrate into the fanclubs and social media fan profiles in order to led them to do all of that.
I think a MAJOR difference here is that yes, this has been happening for quite some time among groups of fans. *However*, this is the first time an artist encourages and posts these methods. That’s where the real scandal is.
I hope Spotify releases a statement on this.
Chris Brown did it in 2017 but failed (and got caught red handed)
DJ Khaled tried to manipulate the Billboard too, but by using another trick (bundle deals)
SMH.. these arrogant people, supposed to be big sellers can’t even get a number one without cheating, and they don’t even hide their game as they openly ask people to help them to cheat on socmedia.. :
“please help me to be revelent, as my shit isn’t enough anymore”
This is really just marketing. The streams are still streams, even if people are sleeping or outside the U.S. If people are still concerned about Billboard Charts you’re living in yesterday’s music industry.