
Facebook inflates its ad reach by millions, analyst claims - snomad
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/facebook-inflates-ad-reach-claims-pivotal-research-analyst.html
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NathanKP

        Facebook's Ads Manager claims a potential reach of 41 million 18- to 24-year olds
        and 60 million 25- to 34-year olds in the United States, whereas U.S. census data
        shows that last year there were a total of 31 million people between the ages
        of 18 and 24, and 45 million in the 25-34 age group, the analyst said.
    

I doubt that Facebook is purposefully lying about their numbers, but the fact
that they estimate their reach to be greater than the census results means
there must be a lot of bot accounts on Facebook.

Assuming that Facebook isn't lying, and they actually see as many accounts as
they claim to reach this data would suggest that at least 25% of the accounts
on Facebook are alt accounts or bot accounts. And that is assuming that
everyone in the target demographic who was in the census is on Facebook.
Facebook must be greater than 25% bots.

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ceejayoz
Yeah, I doubt this is malicious.

Lots of grade school aged kids have an alternate Facebook - one for
parents/grandparents/relatives, one more locked down for their friends.

Folks who have to be on FB for work often make a second, work-only account. I
still see plenty of small businesses running a "personal" profile instead of a
page.

~~~
lightbyte
This would suggest that an enormous amount of facebook accounts were alt/bot
accounts. I simply cannot think of a way that Facebook would be completely
oblivious to this, at best this is severe negligence from them, and at worst
outright fraud.

~~~
ceejayoz
I'm sure they're _aware_ , but can you propose a way to _prevent_ this without
_massive_ false-positive rates? There's not going to be a very easy way to
determine if "Jane Lastname" and "Jane Middlename" are the same person or just
roommates who happen to share a first name.

~~~
NTDF9
It really is for the advertisers to determine if a "like" from "Jane Lastname"
AND "Jane Middlename" is worth anything to them. Orrr, are they throwing money
into a blackhole.

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kristianc
Facebook could do something about this if it wanted to. Its entire business
rests on identity verification / personal identity. It has more data on logged
in IP ranges than anyone else on the planet, bar Google. Is anyone really
suggesting that it doesn't have the resources to identify and mass ban fakers?
If they can't solve this problem, it's because they don't want to solve it.

~~~
sharkmerry
solving this problem. reducing the pool of "people" they can advertise too,
which reduces effectiveness, revenue, profit, stock price. It may not be a
complete sham, but its clearly inflated artificially

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the_shadybean
I've just checked the Facebook Power Editor, targeting users within the the
united States. It seems users are counted separately across different
platforms;

United States aged 18 - 24; Facebook 34m; Instagram 5m; Audience Network 2m;
Total 41m

United States aged 25 - 34; Facebook 50m; Instagram 8m; Audience Network 2m;
Total 60m

Edit;grammar and data

~~~
alexashka
Unrelated but is anyone surprised at the ratio of Facebook to Instagram?

Only 1 in 7 18-24 year olds that have facebook in the US have instagram
accounts? I find that very hard to believe.

~~~
the_shadybean
The totals I provided from the Facebook Power Editor are the ones given when
you select all of the targeting options together, which is where the numbers
from the article come from.

If I select just Instagram then users in United States 18 - 24 is 28m and
users in United States 25 - 34 is 34m.

So it's not a clear overlap, it could be users with Instagram account not
connect to a Facebook account or have no Facebook account at all. Instagram
does allow up to 5 accounts to be signed in at the same time from a single
device.

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patja
Facebook is either incapable (which I doubt) of enforcing their terms of
service, or has concluded that it is in their best interests to turn a blind
eye towards people with more than one account and children in the US under age
13 who have accounts.

Some modern day incarnation of Tipper Gore needs to take them to task for
violation of the US COPPA legislation.

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paulie_a
Honestly most people dont even realize they are sharing an ad. Despite my best
efforts to block ads and hide the increasing quantity of spammy ads, Facebook
seems to be doubling down. as a result my engagement in Facebook has
drastically dropped.

But when I do share on occasion I get wierd notifications "you have shared
three days in a row and your friends are responding"

That is just weird and terrible marketing, quite frankly more akin to cult
recruitment/retention

