OOPS: Advertisers Allege Facebook Failed to Disclose Key Metric Error for More Than a Year.

“Facebook knew of problems with how it measured viewership of video ads for more than a year before it revealed them in 2016, according to a complaint filed by advertisers.”

via WSJ:

Damping marketers’ concerns is important for Facebook as it seeks a bigger piece of U.S. spending on online video ads, which is projected to grow 30% this year to $27.8 billion. Facebook is expected to account for almost 25% of U.S. video ad spending, eMarketer estimates.

For two years, Facebook had counted only video views that lasted more than three seconds when calculating its “average duration of video viewed” metric. Video views of under three seconds weren’t factored in, thereby inflating the average length of a view.

Facebook replaced the metric with “average watch time,” which reflects video views of any duration.

After disclosing the issue in 2016, Facebook said in a statement that it had “recently discovered” the error.

Facebook told some advertisers that it likely overestimated average time spent watching videos by 60% to 80%. The plaintiffs alleged in Tuesday’s complaint that the error was much larger and that the average viewership metrics had been inflated by some 150% to 900%.

Only Facebook knows Facebook’s actual numbers, so who knows how much worse the problem might have been — or might still be.

 

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook Deletes Disabled Veteran’s Page Without Warning — After Taking $300,000 for Ads.

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On his new website which aims to put an end to social media censorship, Air Force veteran and triple-amputee Brian Kolfage explains who he is and the challenges he’s facing stating: “I’m a veteran of The United States Air Force. I was severely wounded in Combat, on 9/11/2004 while serving in Iraq I lost both my legs entirely and my right hand. I’m the most severely wounded US Airman to survive.”

Kolfage continued: “I’m not a ‘conservative.’ I’m not a ‘liberal.’ I’m an American, with deep beliefs in what our country stands for. I proved this by vowing to protect and fighting for America greatest tenant: Free Speech. Many Americans have fought for these political freedoms … freedom of speech … and every American has enjoyed those freedoms… UNTIL TODAY. October 11th Facebook shut down thousands of Facebook accounts for their political opinions stating that they don’t have a ‘legitimate political argument’. STOP SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORSHIP NOW!”

Kolfage was the administrator of a number of Facebook pages, notably the pages Right Wing News and Military Grade Coffee, both of which were deleted recently as Facebook attempts to crack down on what it considers “misinformation” on the platform. Right Wing News had more than 3 million followers at the time of its blacklisting by Facebook.

Facebook can’t sell ads to readers who don’t go there. It’s fine for sharing cute memes or catching up with old friends, but relying on a “progressive” platform to get out your message is a big mistake.

Kolfage’s new website, Fight4FreeSpeech, is here.

h/t SG

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