Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites that people share their life with the world. However, despite its popularity, it has been facing criticisms and doubts from the general public about its bugged ad metric and allegedly "fake news" that is said to have influenced 2016 America's presidential election.
Facebook's Bugged Ad Metric
In a written article at Forbes, last September, Facebook announces that there were some bugs in its video viewership data. This bug made Facebook overestimate the average time spent by users in watching videos posted on Facebook for the last two years. It is said that Facebook overestimated the data by up to 60 to 80 percent.
When this got out, many advertisers were disappointed to learn that the data they have been receiving for the last two years were not accurate. This had led them to misspend their ad dollars over the last two years when Facebook claimed to be improving its video usage quarter over quarter. Upon further research, Facebook uncovered that there was also some errors in its page views and instant article views.
Facebook Fixing the Problem
Facebook announced that all of these bugs will be fixed in the upcoming weeks. However, the damage has already been done and people are questioning the accuracy of the data that Facebook is presenting, which is why in an effort to gain back the trust of the advertisers, Facebook is launching new ways to verify viewership metrics through third-party viewability verification partners, including Moat, IAS, and comScore.
Facebook "Fake News" issue
According to 13 WMAZ, with president-elect Donald Trump's victory, people are questioning if Facebook played a role in promoting inaccurate and highly partisan information. Reportedly, almost half of the people in American Adults turn to Facebook for a source of news. Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denying this allegation, Facebook has started to crack down on these allegedly "fake news" that are seen in the in the social media site.
