Facebook denies pretending to stay the course on the problem of video metrics | Digital

Facebook is once again under pressure to provide false statistics to advertisers. The social network, which two years ago acknowledged errors in the way it calculated video views, faces new accusations that it has not responded quickly enough to the problem.

On Tuesday, in a new lawsuit filed in a California federal court, Facebook was accused of staying for more than a year with information on inflated video viewing statistics that she shared with brands and advertisers.

Facebook disputes the allegations, saying the trial is "baseless". "We filed a motion to dismiss these fraud charges," a Facebook spokesperson said on Tuesday in an e-mail. "The suggestions that we tried to hide this problem from our partners are false.We informed our customers of the mistake as soon as we discovered it – and updated our service center. help to explain the problem. "

Facebook provides brands with performance data for their unpaid publications. For two years, he calculated how she calculated the average time spent by viewers watching videos. In 2016, dealing with the problem of marketers, Facebook said that the average time had been inflated by 60% to 80% and that it had only had an impact on unpaid publications .

A group of small advertisers is suing Facebook alleging unfair business practices and fraud. In new court filings, advertisers say Facebook was aware of the confusion between the statistics in January 2015, well before full disclosure. In September 2016, the problem was made public following the leak of a Facebook note addressed to marketers, describing the metric incident. Facebook then apologized and changed the way the platform provides metrics to advertisers.

The complaint also claims that Facebook underestimated the inaccuracy of the metrics and that the average viewing times were inflated to 900%.

Crowd Siren, a Las Vegas marketing agency who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, did not return a request for comment.

"It is possible that Facebook has been aware of the problem in advance and that it is not aware of all," said Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal.

No advertisers have been overpaid or incorrectly billed due to metrics issues. But some worried that bloated video statistics could mislead brands into thinking that Facebook was more useful than real and could affect their spending.

Since the initial report problem, Facebook has reorganized its reports to advertisers. For the first time, this allowed the Media Rating Council to verify its data, a process that is still ongoing. The company has also started working with third-party measurement companies, so that they can provide independent analysis to advertisers.

The fallout from the measures was quickly followed by the 2016 US presidential election, which uncovered problems with false accounts spreading misinformation. In addition, discriminatory advertising practices have been discovered over the past two years, showing that Facebook could be used to target job and housing ads for certain groups while avoiding others. Facebook has since adjusted the way buyers can set advertising goals.

"This lawsuit reflects the relative weakness of the organization on Facebook," says Wieser.

Wieser sharply criticized Facebook's myriad of problems and pointed out that it faced other lawsuits over metrics. A complaint was filed against Facebook in August regarding a possible advertising scope.

Facebook's advertising platform gives brands an estimate of the number of people they can reach in certain regions and age groups. Sometimes the universe of the population is larger than what the US Census estimates would suggest is possible, Wieser said.

"Nobody blames Facebook for actively seeking to mislead," Wieser said. "But it seems terribly practical that it is always favorable to them in case of error."