In 2016, Facebook admitted to an error in miscalculating video metrics, which of course had major consequences for advertisers. A lawsuit alleges that Facebook knew about the error earlier and that it went much deeper than they admitted.
A group of advertisers suing Facebook characterized the company's behavior as fraudulent, saying that not only did they know about the problem much sooner than it was reported (almost two years), but that the average viewership metrics were not inflated by the reported 60-80 percent, but an astounding 150-900 percent. The lawsuit alleges that Facebook deliberately obscured this, because the true numbers indicated that the majority of videos were barely played, indicating that users scrolled past them and thus, lowering the value of video advertising and revenue for Facebook. The lawsuit characterizes Facebook's behavior as "reckless indifference toward the accuracy."
Facebook has claimed that the miscalculations did not affect billing, but the lawsuit alleges that the hugely inflated numbers caused them to continue dropping money on an ineffective platform (many photographers and videographers have lamented the ineffectiveness of Facebook advertising). Some have also posited that Facebook's heavy push of video encouraged many news groups to lay off writers and transition to more video-laden strategies that did not perform for them. The court proceedings will resume on December 14 of this year.
Lead image by Tobias Dziuba, used under Creative Commons.
The interesting part of this story for me is the ineffectiveness of video. I’ve noticed this trend in my own browsing. I am often attracted to an fstoppers article, only to discover that it’s a video. I almost always just move on to another story. This trend is encouraging to me as someone who prefers the still image.
I've paid for video ads on Facebook. I don't understand how they can say that the grossly inflated viewership stats didn't affect billing when they charge you based on views.
They grossly... grossly inflate estimated reach on post ads as well. It's basically false advertisement on how your own advertisements will reach an audience. Yet, they still bill to your budget. Seeing this article, I'm going to investigate a little.
I wonder if fb can be effectively sued to have to pay back the metric differences to all the people who were charged the higher premiums for their supposed higher views they never got. Not sure if and how that could pan out, but boy that would be so awesome.
I always assumed this was the whole reason why they introduced autoplay video, so they could claim it was played/viewed as people scrolled past.