Fake Stats and Artificial Streaming Manipulation

There’s been an obvious increase in people using cheats and hacks to increase streaming numbers for a lot of mainstream artists and their tracks. This kind of manipulation really messes with how we engage with music on these platforms. For instance, you’ve got listeners showing some pretty impossible stats, like having a streaming history that goes back to before an artist even released their music or racking up millions of streams on songs that just dropped.

A prime example is a top listener for Camila Cabello. She started her music career in 2017, yet this listener’s streaming history for her goes all the way back to 2007, which is just off. In fact, almost every hacker I see first started streaming literally way back in 2007. Plus, they’ve somehow managed to get over a million streams on a song that was only released last year.

This kind of stuff, often called "stream farming" or "artificial streaming manipulation," really skews the picture of real listener engagement. It creates problems not just for the artists but also for the platforms themselves. We really need to tackle this issue to keep streaming data credible and make sure artists are celebrated for genuine support, not fake numbers.