Facebook incorrectly counted the number of people watching videos and now it's in big trouble

A lawsuit filed in California alleges that Facebook knew about a reporting error in its video statistics and attempted to keep the discovery quiet.

Online media and branding company Crowd Siren (which purchased video ads with the social network) filed the revised lawsuit based on information that was provided during the discovery phase of the pre-trial process.

The incorrect figures were the result of an error in how Facebook counted the users watching videos. Because the social network excluded users who watched for fewer than three seconds it made the average play time to increase in reports.

In 2016 the Wall Street Journal had uncovered information that showed Facebook was overestimating the average time spent watching videos between 60 and 80 per cent. At the time Facebook said "We recently discovered an error in the way we calculate one of our video metrics".

However the court filing goes on to claim that the company knew about this for longer than it admitted.

It says "Facebook did not discover its mistake one month before its public announcement. Facebook engineers knew for over a year, and multiple advertisers had reported aberrant results caused by the miscalculation (such as 100 percent average watch times for their video ads). Yet Facebook did nothing to stop its dissemination of false metrics."

There are additional concerns about what Facebook told advertisers and content creators. The advice to switch to video was, apparently, flawed but publishers invested in video only then to see less return than they expected.

Some have claimed that this has cost writers jobs as their firms pivoted to video. And likewise, now that video doesn't seem as viable those hired might lose their jobs.

The year so far hasn't been great for the company. It has been accused of collecting more data from users than it admits. There has been a substantial security failure and the founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have quit over the handling of their apps.