I’m more than a little annoyed at the circumspection with which Facebook is being treated after acknowledging its fourth ‘mistake’ concerning viewer metrics in as many months.
On Friday, Facebook revealed faulty metrics with Instant Articles, its mobile publishing system, the fourth disclosure of a measurement error since September. The admission sharpened calls for more independent organizations to monitor the performance of digital advertising. And some large firms that buy a lot of ads said they will more closely scrutinize their spending on the social networking giant and could shift marketing dollars elsewhere.
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In September, Facebook shared its first measurement error: inflated viewership numbers for its video ads, a relatively new product. Two months later, the company disclosed additional metric errors along with new tools for third-party measurement companies, including ComScore and Nielsen, to track its system more closely.
Problems persisted. Earlier this month, a report in Marketing Land, an industry publication, spotted a discrepancy between Facebook’s internal metrics on how articles where shared and public measurements. Facebook confirmed the error. “That shouldn’t happen,” said Brian Wieser, senior analyst, Pivotal Research Group. “If anyone was concerned that Facebook’s self-audit was not sufficient enough, they just proved it.”
There’s more at the link.
If I were a major advertiser using Facebook, and heard of the fourth major error in as many months – all of them in Facebook’s favor, allowing it to charge me more for my advertisements than their viewership and/or penetration actually warranted – I’d be demanding a very, very large refund. If I didn’t get it, I’d be talking to my lawyers. Ian Fleming used an old military truism to put words in his character Auric Goldfinger’s mouth: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” Well, Facebook has now announced its fourth mistake – and all four helped it to charge higher advertising rates than its actual metrics warranted. If that’s not a deliberate pattern of lying and/or deception, what is?
I’ve written before about Facebook’s monumental threat to individual privacy. We’ve seen it censor free speech in its news feeds and elsewhere. Now there’s this. What’s next?
Frankly, the sooner Facebook goes the way of the dodo, the better, in my opinion.
Peter
Heartily agreed! A pox on their houses! Or would that be "house"? Either way, they cannot fall swiftly enough.
They are EVIL. They are an Authoritarian Cultural Marxist propaganda machine.
They actively support hate speech*, they are anti-free speech. They lie, they're hypocrites and they're run by an evil little monster.
* Hate speech is a stupid term, but it's what we're stuck with – regardless, it's protected by the 1st amendment. Preaching hate is not a benefit to society – it's only a benefit to people who want to control society. I think the best way to handle it at the "FaceTweet" level is to ignore it – not to police it. What they've chosen to do is categorize anything not part of the progressive narrative as Hate Speech then ban it – at the same time they amplify and propagate the "hate speech" of identity politics.
Can't tar all with the same brush, but the bottom line for business is money. I cannot figure out what the bottom line is for anyone else who is not doing business. We have heard so many sob stories involving FB, why are people still there?
Cuckersperg has been a lying cheating double dealing powermad scumbag from day 1. The sooner his empire has the relevance of MySpace or geocities the better.
As an aside we have some damn pathetic billionaires these days. We once had half crazy brilliant MEN like Howard Hughes who actually built things. They did manly shit like fly bleeding edge airplanes by day and fornicate with top shelf Hollywood harlots by night all while running businesses that actually made things. Incredible things that helped America advance and become stronger while making their billions. They were billionaires, they were men and they were Americans. What have we got? The aforementioned Cuckersperg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook? What a nauseating bunch of so-called enlightened world citizens with all the style and vision of accountants or tax preparers at H&R Block. I guess Elon Musk is the closest thing we have but he's not even an American.
Facebook is fine for what it is, a way of keeping in touch with friends, etc. But its popularity has led its founder to think he's invented the printing press or steam engine and to start strutting around with lame-duck "world leaders" and thinking he has a role to play in how we should all live. The sooner it is cut off at the knees and goes back to thinking it's a mildly useful communication tool, the better.
The correct term is fraud. They should be investigated for fraud.