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A comment on Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years. Parent comment

Re:Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years by daveguy on Thursday September 22, 2016 @09:40PM (#12561743)
That is an important question that wasn't clear in the article. If they counted those sub 3 sec views in the count but not in the duration then it would definitely be fraudulent. If they didn't include sub 3 sec in the count or in the average then it is a valid technical decision. I am guessing they were included in the count but not in the duration.

They should have a histogram of durations.

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Re:Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years by dismantlethesun on Thursday September 22, 2016 @10:11PM (#12561857)
It looks like they didn't count it in either metric. Peoples' complaint is that they excluded it from all averages and all reports, which inflates their average duration of video watched because videos less than 3 seconds aren't included at all.
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Re:Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years by arcticfox on Thursday September 22, 2016 @10:10PM (#12561856)
That distinction makes all the difference to me. IMO one answer is fraud and the other is borderline valid / no big deal.
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Re:Facebook Overestimated Key Video Metric for Two Years by prostoalex on Friday September 23, 2016 @02:45AM (#12562766)
> If they counted those sub 3 sec views in the count but not in the duration

It sounds like this was exactly what was happening.

From the article: "Video views of under three seconds were not factored in, thereby inflating the average. Video views of under three seconds were not factored in, thereby inflating the average. Facebook’s new metric, “Average Watch Time”, will reflect video views of any duration."

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