Facebook's so-called live video made bashes as angry emoticons flood the social network site as yet again, the feature was proven to be far from what it claims to be. Too bad the truth became evident only after millions were already far-gone fooled.
A whooping six-million views flooded a clip featuring what seemed to be lamest maintenance job. The video showed how to change a light-bulb atop a 1,999ft or roughly 609-meter high tower! No wonder viewers were instantly drawn to the "LIVE" footage.
BBC confirms that the video was posted by both USA Viral and Interestinate pages in "Facebook." Amazement slowly became a disappointment as soon enough, viewers realized the video was in no way live. How? Simple, changing light bulb don't take as long as four hours!
The video was busted, it was nowhere near live nor recent. The Next Web says the video was only about 18 minutes in running time. The clip was simply looped to play repeatedly and lasted four hours. The loop apparently caught a lot of attention hitting millions of views until it was busted.
Just a few weeks back, the same video-looping trick was also used by another USA page that also went viral with a clip that featured space walking. Pages claim however that the light-bulb changing video did not originate from any specific organization or group.
Keen web searchers report that they can only trace the earliest origin of the video to a Youtube channel. The said video was uploaded on the 21st of September last year, far away from being live! The videos' caption suggest that the clip was merely a footage of a climb of the KDLT Tower found in Rowena, South Dakota. Its not even, in fact, lightbulb changing but of an antenna inspection instead.
Despite the growing negative feedback, live videos on Facebook are viewer magnets as soon as it appears on notifications. Every single view, share, comment and reaction accrues ultimately to the benefit of Facebook"and therefore taking it down is not one of its priorities. What's your take?
