This is nothing new in the media world. New York Bestsellers and their publishers all mass buy their own books to stuff their numbers. The major music and film industry companies also do this with their own library to fix the Billboard, etc charts.  It’s totally ridiculous, but the world is rigged like this. 

 Exactly, it’s FIAT ethos. I just don’t want to be a part of it. I seriously did not expect that my « hey, I’m gaming your leaderboard » would be met by a « yeah, it’s fine we’ll take the sats » 

 Don’t get me started on Nielsen Ratings. I work closely with a TV producer and what I’ve learned about how is crazy. It’s a closely guarded secret how they create their ratings. Which more or less means they are bogus and make up their numbers.