Facebook miscalculated its key video metric for two years. Advertisers use this metric to determine the performance of their videos on the social media site. It is likely that the data was inflated by as much as 80 percent. Facebook has apologized for the mistake and clarified that the miscalculation had no impact on billing or any other video metric.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook disclosed the mistake through a post on its "Advertiser Help Center." The company stated that the artificial inflation of the metric for calculating the average time spent by a user watching videos occurred as it only factored in video views of more than three seconds. However, upon inquiries, some ad agency executives were given more detailed data.
The news may impact Facebook's efforts to increase video consumption on its platform. Along with the apology, Facebook also stated that the metric has been fixed to provide more realistic data. The disclosure may put a dent on Facebook's efforts to make advertisers use its video tools.
Facebook is looking to augment its video offerings. The company also risks being seen as a closed ecosystem with minimal transparency in its procedures. According to Business Insider, several prominent personalities including Sir Martin Sorrell had pointed out the issue earlier.
Sir Sorrell, who is the CEO of WPP, had called Facebook's three-second video viewability threshold 'ludicrous." He had also asked Facebook to design better independent metrics. WPP contributed $1 billion to Facebook's revenue in the previous year on behalf of its clients.