Facebook Gaming Is Overrun With Strange Videos and Scams
Facebook Gaming was supposed to be the social media giant's answer to Amazon.com Inc.'s Twitch — a place to watch people play video games. Four years after its promising launch, the service has turned into an eerie digital ghost town where some of the most-watched accounts aren't even gamers, some of the top live streams aren't even live, and a large portion of the real gamers' video views have disappeared. The typical fare on a game-streaming site involves a player narrating as they play. But on a recent February morning, the No. 1 spot on Facebook Gaming was dominated by video from the military game Arma 3 billed as footage of Russia's Ukraine invasion. Other top videos included a montage of chiropractic footage and an unmanned digital double-decker airplane, floating with no narration. Sometimes, the top live videos show southeast Asian women selling foot callus removal kits or diet pills with content tags like “playing Grand Theft Auto V” or “playing League of Legends.” Some videos that purport to be live run for up to 11 hours, looping recorded footage.
Such content differs starkly from the game livestreaming showcased on Twitch and YouTube Gaming. Seven of the top 10 most-watched Facebook Gaming accounts in late 2021 were responsible for the strange or off-topic videos, which can draw over 50,000 Facebook users at once, according to data from Stream Hatchet, which draws data directly from Facebook's API. Some were eligible to run ads or receive donations through Facebook. After Bloomberg raised the issue with Facebook parent Meta, many of the suspicious channels were delisted or removed.
As the prerecorded, commerce, or simply bizarre video activity takes over — in the last quarter of 2021, it accounted for 42
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