The financial times filed an amended lawsuit against Facebook senior executives for knowingly inflating its ad audience, according to the financial times the social media executives were very much aware for years that the potential lead was inflated, and misleading users its advertisers could reach.
A project manager told senior executives in 2018 that Facebook’s prospective audience figures were “deeply wrong’’ and suggest changing the metrics to make it more exact, however, senior executives allegedly dismissed the changes, saying such change would be grave on the revenue. According to the filling.
Sections of a filing that were previously redacted show internal conversation between the product manager and executives in charge of the reach metrics.
“Its revenue we should have never made given the fact it’s based on wrong data,” the employee said. Some sections were previously reserve on the basis that was commercially sensitive for Facebook.
The social media company argued that the numbers were only assessed and that advertisers don’t make payments based on potential reach but on clicks and impressions.
It is not the first time the company has been arraign for overstating user numbers to boost revenue, in 2016, the company agreed that it had been overstating user video views for two years, and it paid $40 million to settle the claim in 2019.
So far, this had no impact on advertisers, as Facebook’s revenue continues to grow without any reduction. Unfortunately, the company is less confident about the coming year, given that social media has banned new links in Australia, and faces issues with apple over ad tracking.