In August 2019, the Indian rapper Badshah was widely accused of using a network of servers for the promotion of his latest music video ‘Paagal’. One day after release, this video had reached as many as 75 million views on YouTube, a record. The rapper maintains that he merely employed Google advertising to reach interested viewers. Regardless of the truth, the story showcases how money drives online media prominence.
Read more in this week’s ‘Oxford Student’, written together with Yury Kolotaev.