40k Douchebag: Beasts of War

In the comments, people went back and forth with their opinions and Warren presented an image showing a Facebook paid campaign he's been running for close to a month now.

Here is the image.

Now, before I dissect this piece of evidence to support Warren's claim, I want to make clear, Warren asked if we could discuss these issues over voice chat, I refused because I didn't want things getting mixed up over a phone conversation, when they could be handled over email more effectively, that way be both had a paper trail. This became the pretext for not giving me the information I requested, and along with me deleting belligerent comments from his friends, was cover enough for Warren to ignore the issues and ultimately hide in his sand castle.

To give you an idea of what comments I delete here is a few of my favorites.

Julian Cox Clearly BoK are not prepred to admit their error but happy to 'Troll' .. I'm sure BoK are enjoying the sudden increase in traffic triggered by taking a pop at a much more popular group (for whom facebook is a minor part). I've now been here (+1 visit) commented (+1 comment) but won;t be adding a like (+0 like) nor visiting again.

Ice Wolff Are you trying to get more likes , by unfairly accuse good people !>??!! , big dislike for me, dumbs down to you blood of kittie

Paul Williams Unlike Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

As you can see, not adding much to the discussion or providing constructive criticism. This doesn't even go into the emails I have received from "Blood of Kittens readers" detailing how I am a terrible person I am for pointing this out.

Ok, back to the image, since this is the only evidence I really have to go on.

First off notice the amount spent, 90 pounds or 140 dollars. This is after saying in the Facebook comments he spent 65 pounds, followed by taking to his own YouTube show to say 30 pounds per campaign. I guess, just say whatever number you want to generate the correct amount of sympathy depending on the audience. So how does 90 pounds generate over 10k likes on Facebook? When the BEST going rates for likes is 5-10 cents. The Beasts of War campaign is generating likes for under one cent through Facebook.

Next thing to notice from this image is the start date of 10-27, but as you can see the like spike doesn't happen till Nov. 5th that is quite the lag, more than a week. According to Warren in the YouTube video he made a global campaign for the first time using "Razor Sharp" keywords, English speakers only, and most importantly the campaign was to run for a "few days". Not only does the image above contradict what Warren is saying, it doesn't even hold water in the world of Facebook is perpetrating fraud crowd.

If you go back to the comments on Facebook, you will notice Beasts of War defenders all point to ONE video as the end all be all proof that Facebook did it, along with Mr. Green and the candlestick.

If you want a balanced synopsis of this video without watching it check out this article.

http://www.audiencebloom.com/2014/04/facebook-fraud-facebook-deliberately-allowing-fake-likes/

Appling the Beasts of War case to the Veritasium case, you can easily see the similarities, but there are some big differences. The biggest is Beasts of War is alleging a more targeted campaign than Vertiasium used. Vertaisium first discovered this problem with Facebook back in 2012, and only now decided this year to post something about it. Second, Veritasium attempted an experiment with a fake page to see what would happen. Unlike, Beasts of War which used "Razor Sharp" keywords the Vertasium campaign; used Cats, which if you think about is really a homing beacon for fake likes, used poor keywords, was a small sample size, ran for one day, and Vertasium readers knew the experiment was happening before it started! This doesn't mean if you haphazard run a campaign you won't get fake likes, you most certainly will and it could be hundreds of them! What you won't get though is over 10k likes spending 90 pounds over a few days in a month-long campaign! Here is another article illustrating a campaign closer to the one Beasts of War claims to have run.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530961/the-hidden-world-of-facebook-like-farms/

The global campaign used generated 500 likes over 15 days, most importantly the first graph show a gradual increase in likes over the 15 day campaigns, when using the Facebook campaigns.

Oddly, when they used campaigns paid to Like Farms the graph is different, especially for global campaign, it spikes instantly.

Hmm, sorta like another graph I know...

Without other screenshots and step by step information from Warren on how Facebook could have caused this to happened, all I can go on is what he said in video and the one image he provided me with.

Warren pretends not to know how Social Media works, but seconds later sounds like he exactly knows what he is doing. Which one is it? Why, did he take to the dedicating 20 minutes of his Weekender to these issues when at the end, he says my post doesn't matter? He is playing the sympathy card pretty well, and either by coaxing or randomly has gotten people to attack Blood of Kittens in really pathetic manner. I guess the hope is I would back down, but by now people should know me better, when I smell a rat I have this unhappy ability to trap it.

Before I get to my final theory on this whole charade, there is still the issue about engaged users. When you promote your page you get likes to your page not individual posts. If you want targeted "post likes" you have to promote those posts separately. So, why are individual posts in Beasts of War Facebook feed getting so many likes from the fake profiles? Even if you use the Veritasium argument, it doesn't explain this phenomenon because those fake profiles are engaged, I am actually curious if I could be missing something.

Then we have according to Warren's video, we have the whole we don't sell anything on Facebook bit! Because all those giveaways come from Beasts of War's pockets only, or advertisers don't look at your Facebook reach when they consider paying for ad space on the main webpage? Does Warren think people are really that stupid?

I doubt this post will move the needle for those determined to believe Beasts of War side of the story, but it is necessary to put forth what I believe as the most plausible explanation to what happened.

Now, we are going to enter some theorycraft based on the circumstantial evidence I currently have.

Back on October 16th Beasts of War started a Facebook Challenge with a goal of reaching 55,000 likes and giving away a two Infinity armies. I don't have the Facebook numbers for Beasts of War at the time the challenged started, but if you take the recent spike in likes into consideration, you can see they were well behind. It is safe to assume Warren had every intention to think this contest would get him the likes he needed. At some point though, it either became clear he wasn't going to get the 55k number organically, or his intention all along was to use it as a backdrop to pay his way to the number.

The promoting happened either one of two ways. First, he used Facebook exclusively by targeting directly known click farm locations, using targeted keywords and parameters to lure those fake likes in. The second and I find most plausible explanation is Warren paid a click farm, once he either realized the Facebook campaign wasn't working or used the Facebook campaign as cover for his click farming purchase. It easily explains the sudden spike and lag from the start of the campaign. It also explains why these fake likes are also liking individual posts as well. Warren either had a master plan or he just stumbled into it as each attempts to generate likes failed.

To this day, those fake likes remain and he keeps on using them to promote his Facebook page. That is actually what really sticks in my craw. In the Weekender Video, they brush aside the exploitation of the whole thing, chalking up to, well everyone in the Western World does it. This cynical response is truly deplorable, there is a difference between buying, say a pair of jeans from the Gap, where you can at least make the claim you are helping a company that employees people at home. It is another to pay click farms directly who exploit people just to directly fill the coffers a handful of people, while providing a service which is completely fraudulent.

From day one Warren and Beasts of War has been about trying to make money, through ad revenue, it just happens Warren likes Wargames. They have tried various schemes to accomplish this, first there was just YouTube content, next was having Wayland Games pay the bills, next joining Geek & Sundry, and now it is just click farming. Almost every post is just one promotion for one product or another, if there is any real content it is hidden behind a pay wall known as the Backstage Pass. This isn't new many blogs and websites do it, but Beasts of War for there pretty visuals does it poorly and you can look up their financials to prove it. Paying for fake likes is just another one of those schemes, nothing more nothing less.

To repeat, no matter who you believe know this, those fake likes are still on their Facebook page with no attempt made to delete them. Sure it will take some time to remove them, but it can be done and unless they want their Facebook page to always read Dhaka, Bangladesh as most engaged city they better get to work.