Fake News and Fake Views for Facebook

Apparently challenges abound for Facebook.

It admitted during the summer that it had over reported video viewing times by between 60 and 80% for at least two years.

It was then accused of carrying ‘fake news’ reports that influenced the US Presidential election. Buzzfeed reported that the top stories from fake news sources on Facebook attracted more engagement than the top stories from legitimate news sources on Facebook leading up to the election, generating more shares and comments on the site.

Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the suggestion saying that less than 1% of news on the site was fake.

The problem with his explanation is that the amount of fake news articles is not actually the problem — the problem is the amount of shares from these articles and their viral reach

All these shared articles carry advertising; if you can’t trust the content, can you trust the advertising?

With only 12% of Facebook news consumers having a lot of trust in the news they see on Facebook you would begin to wonder.

Added to this, Facebook has now reported ‘bugs’ in some of its advertising measurement across video, instant articles and page insights.

• It failed to de-duplicate page insights resulting in over reporting of its page reach
• It undercounted video completion views
• It over counted page bviews on Instant Articles
• It over reported it referrals in Analytics for Apps

So how do you measure the effectiveness of the advertising when you thake these things into consideration?

Facebook has grown to be a behemoth in online advertising, It has grown to be a behemoth in audience reach.

It has a responsibility in ensuring transparency and trust for those who are putting their ad dollars onto the platform. Equally it has a responsibility for transparency to those who put content on the platform .

There already has been an issue with content creators who have aided building Facebook’s audience (let’s admit it — they actually have) and how Facebook has now reduced the benefit to them being on the platform through changes in its algorithm to affect organic reach and prominence.

In fairness to Facebook as a result of these revelations it has stated that it will be widening the number of third-party companies that it works with to measure traffic and engagement. This is long overdue — as Martin Sorrell puts it — you can’t have the player referee the game.

Given its size in the market, this is long overdue and considering that Facebook took $17 billion in ad revenue in 2015, it needs to move quicker in addressing measurability concerns.