Presented without comment — a quote from a freshly unredacted lawsuit filing against Facebook (with our emphasis):
Facebook’s Potential Reach is systematically inflated. For example, in August 2018, Facebook represented to its advertisers that it had a Potential Reach of 230 million adults (i.e. 18 years old or over). According to United States Census data, there are 250 million adults in the U.S., only 68% of which—or 170 million—use Facebook, according to Pew. For 18 to 34-year-olds,Facebook represents to advertisers a Potential Reach of 100 million people. But there are only 76 million 18 to 34-year-olds in the U.S. And Pew found that only 80% of them—or 61 million—use Facebook. After a report was published in the fall of 2017 report (“Report”) alleging that Facebook’s Potential Reach was inflated and exceeded the Census numbers, Facebook employees conducted analysis comparing Facebook’s Potential Reach to US census statistics and acknowledged internally that the Report has “the order of magnitude in inflation correct.”
Documents now confirm senior executives knew for years Potential Reach was inflated and misleading – yet they failed to act, and even took steps to conceal the problem. One Facebook employee wrote, “My question lately is: how long can we get away with the reach overestimation?” In fall 2017, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg acknowledged in an internal email she had known about problems with Potential Reach for years. The Potential Reach Product Manager (Yaron Fidler) proposed a fix that would have decreased the Potential Reach numbers. But Facebook’s metrics leadership team rejected his proposal because the “revenue impact” for Facebook would be “significant.” Fidler responded, “it’s revenue we should have never made given the fact it’s based on wrong data.” Fidler’s proposals to fix the flawed metric were repeatedly rejected. Instead, Facebook developed talking points to deflect from the truth. Facebook claimed Potential Reach inflation is caused by travelers, and repeatedly reminded advertisers and the public that “the Potential Reach is not designed to match the census.” Facebook used these same talking points in its prior motion to dismiss.