The employee told BuzzFeed News that the Cambodian accounts were likely trying to spike their view counts in hopes of later monetizing them (the vast majority of the accounts BuzzFeed News discovered had not been monetized at the time they were terminated). The employee noted that in its previous iteration, the content farm used provocative thumbnails (though none featuring bestiality) to promote titillating videos of women petting snakes. A senior employee at YouTube tasked with building out the company's intelligence desk (a new unit that seeks to identify controversial and rule-violating content trends on the platform) told BuzzFeed News that these graphic thumbnail videos appear similar to those made by a Cambodian content farm that was kicked off the platform in the fall of 2017.
