I was asked to look into some of the data from the BBC Correspondent's site earlier this week and was made an administrator to do so. I'm a member here, but am

I was asked to look into some of the data from the BBC Correspondent's site earlier this week and was made an administrator to do so. I'm a member here, but am using a throwaway ID - because I'm sure there'll be a backlash to what I am going to reveal. Now I want to state for the record, I actually like Facebook, I don't have an axe to grind, and I really believe that MZ's intentions are truly honorable. I would like to believe he knows nothing about this, but I'm not naïve - he owns 57%, and he's a very very clever man. But I am disappointed. So to explain... Because the BBC has a wide non-tech audience some of what was found was not fully revealed mainly because it's so difficult to explain to the general public the tech behind this issues raised. The main point was missed both by TechCrunch, and many commentators on Twitter etc. and I guess general fans of Facebook. The point being that at first the ads were targeted to UK and US people. Hardly any clicks were reported meaning that advertising with this targeted criteria is pointless, and in fact more pointless than expanding the reach to countries that will artificially boost your return. The clicks/likes though high in number will never bear fruit, that much is not disputed by the BBC. But it begs the question if both "settings" are useless then what's the point in spending any money at all with Facebook? Before I get a barrage of hate mail remember I had access to the real data. The BBC describes exactly how you can replicate the experiment for yourself, and I guarantee you'll find the same results. What's more you'll discover the same profiles are liking your fake page the same as they liked the BBCs virtualbagel. Take it from me. What's more the list of Likers contained people who appear to spend their lives clicking likes. These people are clicking between 50-100 likes per day, all day, every day. In the 10 or so days in July many had racked up literally 300-1500 clicks. It doesn't take a genius to work out these people are being paid to click on ads. Remember we're talking third world countries where it makes economic sense to pay someone a-dollar-a-day to click on ads all day, when the return is so massive. The question is who is paying? Who really stands to benefit? Logically it just can't be a third party. This is out-and-out click-fraud. In addition to all this, and I can't reveal too much (because it's still being investigated for later publication) is that there appears to be evidence that the process is also subject to some automation from within Facebook. We have comparative evidence that shows how click automation would look if it was carried out by a third party and how it would look if it was carried out inside Facebook. Unfortunately for Facebook the evidence is showing that again it's driven from the inside. I'm actually quite sad, because it doesn't have to be this way, but from what I have analysed it is, what it is. If you don't believe me do the same exercise and look at the data.