Facebook blows technicolor chunks. Let’s count off a few of the leading reasons for the giant suck.<\/p>\n
The San Jose Mercury News<\/a> has a good overview of the legal case against Facebook that was brought by\u00a0 members of the advertising industry in 2016. The case was grounded in this fact: Facebook \u201ccreated and disseminated the new video analytics platform and its video metrics to induce users to purchase Facebook\u2019s video advertising services.\u201d And purchase they did, because the almighty Facebook said so.<\/p>\n The scandal over the metrics led to allegations that it was not just advertisers harmed by the video-viewing-time inflation \u2014 it was a purported primary factor in a \u201cpivot to video\u201d widely adopted in the news media. \u201cAs advertising budgets shunted toward video to tap the apparent Facebook viewership goldmine, publishers\u2019 editorial budgets followed,\u201d Slate reported<\/a> in 2018. \u201cPublications such as Mic, Vice, Mashable, and many others laid off writers and editors and cut back on text stories to focus on producing short, snappy videos for people to watch in their Facebook feeds.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, the lies that Facebook told advertising and media companies did significant damage to advertising and media companies.<\/p>\n The viewership metrics were inflated by 150 to 900%. Whole companies shifted their strategy to video. Companies going bankrupt, people losing jobs, FB gets away with 0.18% of annual income ($40M \/ $22B), a slap on the wrist. https:\/\/t.co\/6Gdw2eRY7a<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) October 13, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n