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Okay, right here we go once more with Fb’s ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’, which reveals the web sites, publishers and particular hyperlinks that noticed probably the most attain throughout Fb in Q2 2022.
Meta launched its Extensively Seen Content material report final August as a part of an effort to counter to pervading narrative that Fb facilitates the amplification of divisive political content material, with political misinformation, particularly, gaining vital traction by means of Fb Information Feeds.
Fb says that’s merely not the case, and to make clear this, it launched its Extensively Seen Content material report, so as to share information on what’s truly gaining probably the most traction within the app. Which, in keeping with Fb, is usually jokes, memes and different innocent junk.
That may very well be problematic in itself, relying in your interpretation – and even then, the report has additionally been riddled with controversies round disclosures, misinformation, eliminated content material, spam, and extra.
Mainly, it’s not an excellent endorsement of the ‘value’ that Fb supplies, neither is it a validation of Fb as an neutral political reflection.
So what does Fb say gained probably the most traction within the app in Q2?
Right here’s its overview of probably the most broadly seen hyperlinks within the app:
Oh, that’s gotta’ burn Zuck and Co. to see TikTok heading this record.
Think about having to be the one who reported this to Zuck. I think about his response would have been one thing like:
Jokes apart, as you’ll be able to see, 5 of the highest 20 most shared hyperlinks within the app in Q2, reaching a cumulative 73.5 million viewers all through the interval, have since been eliminated by Meta for varied coverage violations regarding ‘spam tactics’.
That’s not nice. Meta is self-reporting that its platform is answerable for junk content material, designed to mislead and dupe customers, reaching 70 million folks in a three-month interval.
However that’s not all – Meta additionally notes that its platform has been used to amplify any such content material prior to now too:
“In our previous WVCR report, we shared that the ninth-most viewed link on Facebook with over 33 million views in the first quarter of this year was alltrendytees[.]com. After the Integrity Institute had flagged it to us, we investigated and blocked this domain for violating our IB policy. Our investigation linked this domain to GearLaunch, a Bangladesh-based e-commerce firm.”
So on one hand Meta’s saying that it doesn’t amplify divisive political content material as a lot as it could appear, and right here’s the proof, whereas on the opposite, it does amplify scams and garbage, a few of which is in violation of its guidelines, at a large scale.
100 million+ cumulative viewers is fairly massive. Removing appears virtually irrelevant at that time.
Thus stays the conundrum that Meta has with its Extensively Seen Content material report, with the information as soon as once more highlighting vital considerations with its methods and processes, that could be simply as unhealthy because the rumors that it was initially searching for to refute.
Although these points are additionally nonetheless prevalent – digging into the opposite hyperlinks listed, there’s additionally:
- A YouTube video the place a lady spouts right-wing conspiracy theories
- A Fox Information clip on YouTube about ‘Disney’s woke queer agenda’
- A Newsmax article which attributes rising petrol costs to US President Joe Biden
Appears a bit of political, there – it does appear to be all these divisive political posts are gaining a good bit of traction on Fb (37.9 million collective Fb viewers), regardless of the corporate’s previous claims.
That looks as if an issue, proper?
Ah, however most individuals don’t truly see any of those posts, with Meta additionally reporting that:
“90.2% of the views in the US during Q2 2022 did not include a link to a source outside of Facebook.”
So even when 100 million extra persons are being scammed due to Fb, many of the issues that most individuals see within the app are undoubtedly not hyperlinks to politically divisive sources – so Fb can’t be blamed for amplifying associated conflicts, no less than based mostly on this measure.
That nearly looks as if a facet be aware, as a result of once more, tens of millions of persons are nonetheless being uncovered to no less than a few of this materials, based mostly on Meta’s personal reporting, whereas that additionally doesn’t account for the truth that many posts with out hyperlinks are nonetheless political in nature.
In different phrases, at finest, that is an inconclusive account of not a lot particularly, which Meta is attempting to border as vindicating proof that it’s not the supply of evil that folks say.
It doesn’t show that. It doesn’t actually show something, aside from the truth that lots of people are participating with a variety of garbage within the app.
You possibly can try Meta’s ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’ for Q2 right here.
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