Facebook Accused Of 'Deceiving' Advertisers

Facebook has found itself back behind the dock over accusations that it over-inflated its ad view statistics by as much as 900% in order to entice advertisers to part with their cash.

According to The Drum, a legal-filing brought against the social network by a group of small advertisers contends that Facebook knowingly falsified its average viewership statistics for over a year as a means of duping advertisers into signing up for video ads in the false belief that more members were viewing them than was actually the case.

Facebook is accused of sitting on its hands from January 2015, when it first became aware of discrepancies in its video-ad metrics, for over a year without taking any corrective action, an "unethical, unscrupulous" act likened to fraud by the lawsuit. Furthermore, its activity was described as ‘likely to deceive’ advertisers.

if you read this section of the amended Facebook complaint, you should replace "user trust" with "publisher trust" and think through strategic impact in building their "platform" as a major hub and marketplace for video. pic.twitter.com/BCf8x8RDuS

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) October 17, 2018

In the filing, brought before the US district court in Oakland the claimants write: “If Facebook had immediately corrected its miscalculation in a straightforward manner, advertisers would have seen a sudden and precipitous drop in their viewership metrics. They also would have seen that they had spent considerable money on past advertising campaigns that were not enjoying anywhere near the average viewership that Facebook had represented.”

Deadspin Deputy Editor Barry Petchesky Tweeted:

Facebook should be in jail, obviously, but let’s not forget about all the smooth-brained media execs who bought into the pivot to video when literally every person who works on the ground in media, or even just uses the internet every day, knew it was complete bullshit.

— Barry Petchesky (@barry) October 17, 2018

Facebook categorically denies any wrongdoing however and has filed a court motion to dismiss allegations of fraud.