Are you shocked to discover that Discord, the “gaming platform” created by and is moderated by prolific sex pests is nonchalantly playing a YouTube video on an endless loop in the background of its program?
Given Discord’s inconsistent approach, targeting fictional content and “extremists” while tolerating actual predators on its platform, the latest April Fools stunt isn’t all that surprising.
The video, uploaded to Discord’s YouTube channel, introduces “loot boxes” for Discord, a joke that’s several years outdated, yet remarkably shattered viewership records.
In its first day alone, Discord’s video garnered hundreds of millions of views, surpassing previous non-music video records set by the announcement trailer for GTA 6. Astonishingly, the momentum hasn’t slowed, with the video now boasting 1.4 billion views in less than two days.
Bots have become increasingly prevalent on social platforms, particularly on Twitter. Numerous instances of blatant bot activity have been observed, boosting the engagements of progressive individuals who have barely any followship.
These individuals somehow manage to accumulate tens of thousands of likes, often overshadowing original posters with quote retweets spreading their propaganda, or as often is the case, anti-Japanese racial sentiment.
It appears that Discord has confessed to “accidentally” boosting the viewership of its recent video. According to their Software developer Marvin Witt’s statement on Twitter, Discord accomplished this by continuously playing the loot box announcement trailer in the background of the in-app toast notification about the video itself.
In essence, whenever a user opens Discord after the introduction of loot boxes, they receive an in-app notification regarding the new feature, which includes the announcement video. With each new user opening the Discord app and encountering the notification, views are being added to the YouTube video.
Discord’s dubious act of artificially inflating their viewership is a far better joke than their actual Loot Box announcement video. However, considering the progressive stance of the company, it’s unlikely that they will face any consequences from YouTube by simply claiming that it was an “accident” because the views themselves are “genuine” to an extent.
