Current Events > Facebook Admitted That It Was Inflating Video Metrics.

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://fortune.com/2018/10/17/advertisers-facebook-video-metrics/

Facebook has been accused of misleading brands by not telling them for more than a year that it was overestimating the amount of time people spent watching videos on the platform.

In September 2016, Facebook admitted inflating its average video viewing figures by only counting views that lasted longer than three seconds. This calculation tactic inflated the average viewing times by 60-80%, the social network told an ad-buying agency at the time.

The skewed metrics did not relate to paid advertisements, but they could have misled brands into thinking that Facebook (FB, +0.47%) was a livelier video platform than it actually was, and some small advertisers sued the platform following its admission.

Now, those claimants have filed an amended complaint. The earlier court proceedings allowed them to review around 80,000 pages of internal Facebook records, and the plaintiffs said Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence showing Facebook knew about the miscalculated metrics all the way back in January 2015.

The plaintiffs also said the inflation of the metrics ran to 150-900%, not 60-80%.

Facebooks internal efforts behind the scenes reflect a company mentality of reckless indifference toward the accuracy of its metrics, the new filing read.

Meanwhile, Facebook told the Wall Street Journal that it was false to suggest that the social network tried to hide the issue from advertisers. We told our customers about the error when we discovered itand updated our help center to explain the issue, a spokeswoman said.

Some observers suggested that Facebooks inflation of video viewing figures affected not only advertisers but also media outlets, many of which made a misguided decision to pivot to video, in the expectation that this was how to get peoples attention.

Early last year, Facebook agreed to have the Media Rating Council audit its ad metrics, and it now also shows advertisers independent analysis from third-party measurement firms.

However, the September 2016 admission was far from the last time Facebook had to apologize for providing incorrect metrics. For example, in May 2017 it issued refunds to some advertisers after admitting that it told them people had clicked on their video ads even if those users were just trying to resize the video carousel. And the following September analysts accused Facebook of wildly overstating the potential reach of ads.

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Damn, thats super shitty.
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I am shocked that Facebook would lie. If you can't trust Facebook who can you trust?
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King_Hellebuyck posted...

Damn, thats super shitty.

The shittier part is that it spawned a huge annoying wave of "pivot to video", which is why every goddamn article everywhere has an obnoxious autoplay video at the top that slides over the lower right corner while scrolling.
https://www.newsweek.com/mtv-news-video-vocativ-media-ads-pivot-630223

All the while, actual journalists and writers were kicked to the curb, in favor of a 'video department' who were later also kicked to the curb.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/12/r-i-p-pivot-to-video-2017-2017/

The end result was even less pageviews, and thus even less ad revenue, in spite of the allegedly "lucrative" video advertising.
https://luthresearch.com/how-the-pivot-to-video-content-strategy-backfired/

That is literally fraud. People pay to have their videos viewed on Facebook
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Wild how this hasn't gotten more attention

good tweet re it: https://twitter.com/tristandross/status/1052595844719886336
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imagine not caring about this
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Muffinz0rz posted...

imagine not caring about this

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hopefully zuckerberg is broke soon
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So many websites "pivoted to video," tossing their writers aside to chase this fucking fraud.
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Antifar posted...

So many websites "pivoted to video," tossing their writers aside to chase this fucking fraud.

exactly

departments were eliminated because of this

jobs were lost

careers were destroyed

all for naught because it turns out people don't watch the fucking videos anyways
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Muffinz0rz posted...

all for naught because it turns out people don't watch the fucking videos anyways

The "research" was just wrong.

Of course "the kids" like to watch videos, but only when they choose to do so. An unsolicited autoplay video that's barely about what the user came to see (or sometimes just a talking head reading the damn article verbatim) is going to be muted or X'd away fairly quickly - all but instantly if it has a pre-roll ad.

more like twofacebook amirite
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Lol imagine owning any facebook stocks
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Do we really need Facebook anymore? Both individually and as a society?

Personally I do want something better than facebook, I think they got too big in the head.
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I made my Facebook look like my gamefaqs.gamespot:





Makes both so much more enjoyable.
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ThanksUglyGod posted...

Do we really need Facebook anymore? Both individually and as a society?

I get people like it for the messenger app (for whatever reason), but otherwise no it's really unnecessary once you're out of like middle school
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Capitalism babay
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