Facebook Underpaid Video Creators Thousands of Dollars in Ad Revenue
https://www.theverge.comMultiple creators were noticing a sharp decline in revenue from Facebook Videos from January, around the time Facebook transitioned to its new Pages experience and made updates to how creators can monetize. Creators say Facebook only cares about advertisers, leaving them with no one to turn to when their payments are unexpectedly short. They reached out for help, but the company gave them no feedback on what could be wrong.
After The Verge reached out for comment, however, Facebook said it “resolved a technical issue that prevented a small number of video creators on Facebook from receiving their full in-stream ads payouts.” “We’re notifying these partners that they’ll receive those remaining in-stream payments during the April payout cycle, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
It’s good news for the creators getting a rebate but still an alarming precedent — holding thousands of dollars back for months with little explanation or guarantee the same problem won’t pop up again in the future.
Facebook has a long history of shoddy metrics causing problems for partners. Earlier this month, court documents showed that Facebook provided advertisers with “inflated and misleading” metrics for years on how many people their ads were reaching. The company apparently knew that the reach of these ads was amplified by fake and duplicate accounts, but chose not to delete them.