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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

The moral of the story: if what the "person/organization who ought to know about these things" is telling you doesn't make sense or doesn't match with your own experience, consider the possibility that they might be just plain wrong. Especially if it would be wrong in a way that makes them look better.

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Absolutely this. We're actively building a system to better monitor effectiveness of social content and it's amazing hearing the relief from people when they're seeing numbers for the first time that look like actual KPIs versus platforms spewing out self serving vanity metrics.

FB and much of the current social marketing scene in general have been handing off best practices that feel highly questionable at best.

What about the equally important take away that you can trust Facebook to lie at any chance it suits them?

Oh, I think that was already clear before this. :)

The upvotes say people found it noteworthy.

I'm curious why Facebook chose to share the wrong metrics. What was the intent?

"why Facebook chose to share the wrong metrics"

Why did you choose to include that bug into your code?

Srsly, people don't choose to make mistakes (but sometimes they choose to do cover up).

Also, there is no such things as "Facebook". Facebook didn't choose, someone inside Facebook either make mistake, or deliberate decision. "Facebook" is not single entity with single agenda and plan, but complex company, with different people optimizing for different things (i.e. security/privacy and growth and ads). There is shared high-level vision, but not every decision is made at single place.

State a falsehood with the intent to deceive is implied by "lie." I'm curious what intent people are ascribing to this action.

You say it was a mistake, at the same time you give many reasons why it likely wasn't a mistake: many people vet the public-facing communications of such a large company.

They make more ad money on video, especially when their measurements overestimate engagement.

As a bonus, it pulls money away from YouTube.

Inaccurate, the misreported metrics didn't impact billing[0].

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-exaggerating-view-c...

Oh yes they say that, but the increased video ad placement the metrics supported did.

You're glossing over the bigger problem. The "person/organization who ought to know about these things" not only has possession of all the data about user behavior on their platforms, they also control the means by which content producers access users.

You're understating the monopolistic power that Facebook's network effects have produced in the online content space.

It's only recently that third party analytics companies came into the space with an incentive and enough data to make meaningful market-wide forecasts.

The excuse for all the trackers involved in online advertising is exactly because not a single advertiser trust any publisher.

Your comment is still very valid for small clients on self-serve systems, though.

I think the other lesson is to be wary of sales pitches being sold as an expert recommendation.

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