Facebook is rightly coming in for criticism again after it was accused of claiming to have more users than actually exist.

In the UK, for example, it claims to have a “potential reach” of 7.8 million people aged between 18 and 24 in the UK. Yet official figures from the Office of National Statistics show there are only 5.8 million in the country.

And this is not the only place where it has happened. Analysts Pivotal Research revealed that in the US, Facebook claims to be able to reach 41 million people in that age group. Official data shows there are only 31 million people that age living in the country.

Meanwhile, in Australia, AdNews found Facebook claimed to reach 1.7 million more people aged 16 to 39 than live there. In fact, its research shows that in a study of 12 countries, nine had large discrepancies equal to Facebook claiming an audience of 42 million more 20- to 29-year-olds than actually exist.

This is clearly a huge problem. Which Facebook has as usual dismissed. A spokesperson says that different methodologies are used to collect the data and that Facebook’s “potential reach” is not meant to match census data.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.marketingweek.com