Facebook's Most Popular Posts Revealed

Facebook Releases Report on Popular Content Amid Transparency Concerns

Facebook has recently published a new report detailing the most popular posts on its platform. This release is a response to ongoing criticism regarding the company’s perceived lack of transparency concerning its top-performing content.

Quarterly Reports and Data Limitations

These “widely viewed content reports” will be issued on a quarterly basis. They will reflect the most viewed posts in the U.S. News Feed over each three-month period. However, this isn’t the real-time data monitoring needed to effectively track emerging trends.

Facebook intends this data to counter claims that its algorithms function as a “black box.” While this gesture towards transparency is a step forward, it remains limited in its usefulness, much like previous blog posts and selectively shared data.

Key Findings from the Q2 Data

The data reveals that 87% of posts viewed in the U.S. during the second quarter of the year did not contain external links. This is a noteworthy statistic, though its significance is lessened by the continued widespread sharing of links across the platform.

YouTube emerged as the leading domain based on Facebook’s “content viewers” metric. This metric defines any account that viewed content within the News Feed. Unfortunately, the report lacks detailed granular data in this area.

Unexpectedly Popular Links

The list of most viewed links includes some surprising entries. Among the top five are a website for Green Bay Packers alumni, an online CBD marketplace, and reppnforchrist.com, a site specializing in Christianity-themed graphic T-shirts.

Notably, the subscription page for the Epoch Times, a source known for promoting pro-Trump conspiracies and disinformation, ranked tenth. It was preceded by a Tumblr link featuring two cats walking with intertwined tails.

Media Outlet Representation

Yahoo and ABC News are the only prominent national media outlets to appear in the top 20 when the data is analyzed in this manner.

Facebook also highlighted posts with the highest view counts, consisting largely of harmless, albeit unusual, memes. One example reads: “If your VAGINA [cat emoji] or PENIS [eggplant emoji] was named after the last TV show/Movie u watched what would it be.”

Motivations Behind the Data Release

Facebook’s decision to collect and present this specific data set stems from a desire to demonstrate a point. The company aims to prove that its platform is not dominated by the political conspiracies and controversial right-wing figures that frequently make headlines.

A Response to External Scrutiny

This dataset represents Facebook’s latest response in its ongoing dispute with New York Times reporter Kevin Roose. Roose created a Twitter account that showcases Facebook’s most engaging posts daily, utilizing the Facebook-owned social monitoring tool CrowdTangle.

According to engagement metrics, Facebook’s top-performing posts in the U.S. are often dominated by far-right personalities and sites like Newsmax, which disseminates election conspiracies that Facebook seeks to distance itself from.

Reach vs. Engagement

Facebook argues that posts with the most interactions do not accurately represent the platform’s top content. The company maintains that reach data – measuring how many people see a post – is a more valuable metric. However, engagement data is equally, if not more, relevant.

“The content that’s seen by the most people isn’t necessarily the content that also gets the most engagement,” Facebook stated, in a clear reference to Roose’s work.

De-emphasizing Political Content

The platform intends to reduce the prominence of political content overall. This is unsurprising given its history of amplifying Russian disinformation, extremist far-right groups, and the “Stop the Steal” movement, which contributed to the violence at the U.S. Capitol.

Previous Transparency Efforts Abandoned

As previously reported by The New York Times, Facebook abandoned plans to make its reach data publicly available through a dashboard. Concerns arose that even this version of top-performing posts would reflect poorly on the company.

Instead, the company chose to release a condensed quarterly report. The result includes a significant amount of inexplicable content, such as the prominence of the Packers website, but less political material. Despite this limited transparency, Facebook could still provide a more comprehensive leaderboard of its most popular content.