Facebook Releases Most-Viewed Content, Surprising Results!

Content about vaccine failure is the most viewed content on Facebook. (photo: thought catalog/unsplash)

JAKARTA – On Wednesday, August 18, Facebook released a report on what content people in the US viewed the most in the last quarter. This is the first time they have released such a report.

But according to The New York Times, Facebook is working on a similar report for the first quarter of 2021 that it chose not to share because it might have a bad impact on the company.

The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the report, said the most viewed links in the first quarter had headlines that could promote COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which has become a problem on social media platforms. The caption reads, “A 'healthy' doctor dies two weeks after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine; The CDC is investigating the reason." The article was published by The South Florida Sun Sentinel and republished by The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times said.

Facebook was working to release this report, but executives, including Alex Schultz, Facebook's CMO and VP of analytics, appeared to be "debating whether it would cause public relations problems, according to internal emails" and ultimately decided not to publish it, The New York Times reported.

"We considered announcing the report earlier, but because we knew it would get attention, just as we saw this week, there are improvements to the system that we are looking to make," Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement.

Stone also clarified Schultz's opinion on whether Facebook should release the report, saying that Schultz "advised to issue the report."

It's been a busy week for Facebook. In addition to publishing a report on the most viewed posts, it also has to deal with an amended antitrust complaint filed against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.