Facebook Knew for Years Ad Reach Estimates Were Based on 'Wrong Data' But Blocked Fixes Over Revenue Impact

According to unsealed documents pertaining to a U.S. class action lawsuit filed in 2018, Facebook allegedly deceived advertisers by knowingly including fake and duplicate accounts in a "potential reach" metric. Facebook denies the claim but has acknowledged accuracy issues with the "potential reach" metric as far back as 2016 — and also changed how it worked in 2019 according to TechCrunch who goes on to say,

Turns out in 2017 COO Sheryl Sandberg had already known for years there were problems with a free ad planning tool the company offers to marketeers to display estimates of how many people campaigns running on its platform...

The filing also reveals that a Facebook product manager for the "potential reach" tool warned the company was making revenue it "should never have" off of "wrong data".

While wondering what to even say about that, we found this comment from Bob Hoffman of AdContrarian who nailed it...

Facebook has never allowed industry-standard 3rd-party auditing of its audience claims. Why? Because they're full of shit and always have been. Facebook is permeated with liars, con men, fraudsters, and bullshit artists. Anyone who believes a word that comes out of their mouths is an idiot.

Ok then. Who are we to argue with a "truly great marketing iconoclast" who'll "possibly be seen as the most influential person of the decade when it comes to media."