Facebook is facing calls for greater transparency and oversight after admitting widespread errors in the way it measures advertising activity, as the social media company finds itself under increased pressure to clean up its act over a number of issues including distributing “fake news”.

On Wednesday, Facebook, which had already angered advertisers when it admitted it made significant measurement errors around video ads in September, said that an internal inquiry found new problems with key measurement metrics.

Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group, said that the latest revelations were clear proof that marketers have been right to call for more independent oversight of Facebook metrics.



He said it was a “clear example that referee and player can’t be same person and that marking your own homework doesn’t work”.

“Media owners, clients and agencies are all dissatisfied with established measurement methods. Now it seems the dam has finally burst at Facebook, although we need full-third party oversight.”

The errors include over-reporting time spent reading Instant Articles, on which Facebook partners with publishers including newspapers to run stories and split ad revenue, and overstating how many people see a Facebook page a month by 55%.

Carolyn Everson, the vice-president of global marketing solutions at Facebook, said: “I think disclosing the bugs and calculation errors we found, some of which are real edge-cases, is a real indication of our commitment to transparency.”



Publishers have also voiced their concerns about the miscalculations. Lynne Anderson, deputy chief executive of the News Media Association, which represents UK newspapers including the Guardian, said the latest revelations underlined the need for transparency from Facebook.

She said: “The admission of yet more Facebook metrics errors is of concern to the news media industry, at a time when publishers are themselves investing heavily to provide advertisers with ever more robust, independent audience data. It is critical that publishers are able to see with complete clarity where, when and how consumers are engaging with their content.”

Sorrell, who has said that as Facebook has become hugely successful it has become “more difficult” to deal with, has almost doubled WPP’s spend with Mark Zuckerberg’s company from $1bn in 2015 to $1.7bn this year.



Facebook is attempting to placate advertisers by setting up a measurement council to hear the industry’s views and examine the effectiveness of advertising.



Unilever, the world’s second-largest advertiser, which spends €8bn a year on brands from Lynx and Sunsilk to Knorr, was quick to announce it was joining the council.



Keith Weed, Unilever’s top marketer, has been vocal about the need for digital media to clean up its act based on the “three Vs” - viewability, verification and value. He has previously compared the lack of transparency to “having billboards underwater, a complete waste of our money.



“We welcome Facebook’s move to create better standards in this fast-developing digital media industry, and these steps reinforce their commitment to this,” he added. “[But] there is still much to be done.”



Facebook also said that it was “exploring” bringing in more checks from third parties, such as Nielsen and ComScore to validate its reporting of metrics for advertisers.

