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Facebook reported fake numbers to advertisers

(news.yahoo.com)
618 points elorant | 3 comments | 19 Feb 21 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.628s | source
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FatalLogic ◴[19 Feb 21 15:12 UTC] No.26193998[source]▶
In addition to the obvious conflict of interest in relations with advertisers which is the focus of this story, this also implies it would be in Facebook's interests to go easy on fake accounts and tolerate their existence. That's troubling, and just in itself it appears contrary to their public facing policy
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nindalf ◴[19 Feb 21 15:40 UTC] No.26194274[source]▶
Why? Wouldn't the people working on fake accounts only care about their own metrics? How would it affect them if some other team's metrics are affected?
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1. elorant ◴[19 Feb 21 17:31 UTC] No.26195508[source]▶
Say you and I both have a shop selling shoes online. If I use fake accounts to click on your ads I "burn" your budget by driving less sales to your bottom line, since the traffic to your site is all fake. Assuming that you have a limited budget that can make a lot of difference to your bottom line versus mine.

This is a tactic broadly used in AdWords in the past, and I assume that it's also used on FB too.

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2. bluGill ◴[19 Feb 21 19:52 UTC] No.26197276[source]▶
Right, but if I track ROI I will notice and the value of the ad spend goes down. I may decide not to buy the next round of FB ads - there are other places to place ads, and I'll keep trying until I find the ones that work. If someone else gives a better ROI because while they have less reach they prevent your click-fraud I'll go with them. Sure I lose the FB only customers, but I may be able to get enough to grow my business, particularly if I target repeat customers well and so I don't need to constantly attract new customers my smaller ad spend (including word of mouth) may make me more profitable in the long run which is what counts.

The above gets even worse when I tell my brother-in-law that he shouldn't bother with FB ads for his new pet food store, this other platform is a better value.

Thus it is long term to FB's advantage to make their numbers real. I can't say if they will or not, but it would be to their advantage.

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3. elorant ◴[19 Feb 21 23:58 UTC] No.26199699[source]▶
Well, realistically speaking there is no alternative to Facebook. If you want to target individuals by interests FB is the only platform that allows it. Sure, there are other places where you could place your ads, and depending on the market if you can find niche sites, or even better communities, you might even get an order of magnitude better ROI, but the great thing about FB is that it's too easy to utilize as an advertiser.

As for click-fraud is pervasive in the online world. I don't think there's any major platform that doesn't have a fraud problem, and I can't realistically think of a solution that's not too much of a problem to work it out. Google is supposedly on top of it for more than a decade, but I haven't met a single person advertising on AdWords who doesn't think that they get fake traffic. I've even read reports that state that one third of global ad traffic is fraudulent.