Take a guess at the most-viewed link shared on Facebook during the second quarter of 2021 (April through June).
Nope. Wrong. Guess again.
Nope. Still wrong.
In a world of COVID conspiracy theories, vaccine arguments, political hostility and Tik-Tok videos, the most-viewed link on Facebook during those three months was a website that allows Green Bay Packers fans to pay for interaction with former Packers.
That's true. At least according to a report released by Facebook in August.
I guess it makes sense. Who wouldn't want to go miniature golfing with Ahman Green and Al Harris? Or mountain biking with Brett Favre and the late Vince Lombardi ("Cycling isn't everything. It's the only thing")?
The Facebook report purported to provide insight into what gets the most attention on social media.
One of Facebook's big takeaways was that no single item gets tremendous attention. The top 20 links combined made up less than one-tenth of 1% of all page views on Facebook during that period.
The rest of the top five provides a view of how weirdly diverse our tastes are: Second was a hemp website, third was the site to give to UNICEF to help fight COVID in India, fourth was a food blogger website called My Incredible Recipes and fifth was a Christian apparel website.
Those are links. The most-seen post was the one with a bunch of letters on the screen with an explanation that the first three words you see "are your reality" (yours would be: Reading Dumb Column). Other most-seen posts include one telling you to post a photo that makes you look young, one with questions about what you would never eat and one asking whether sugar goes on spaghetti. Important stuff. If you spend much time on Facebook, you've probably seen many of the most-viewed posts.
Facebook emphasized the same thing with the most-seen posts: That the top 20 combined to make up less than one-tenth of 1% of page views. The implication (that they want us to draw) is that most of us spend most of our social media time seeing friends' posts and photos.
That's kind of true. But also very, very untrue, because of what Facebook didn't do: Report how often people posted similar information. Often misleading information. Sometimes harmful information.
Curiously, about a week after releasing the report for the second quarter, Facebook finally released a report for the first quarter of 2020 – a report it earlier shelved for reasons that were apparent: The most-viewed link from the first quarter was about a doctor who died after a COVID vaccine (later reports showed the vaccine wasn't connected to his death. Alas, the later reports didn't get seen). That single post played a major role in spreading misinformation about the COVID vaccine. Again, not seen by most people, but still significant. It was better for Facebook to highlight the Packers' website, right?
Most importantly, Facebook didn't report what similar information was shared. Just on the specific links and posts. In that way, the reports are kind of useless.
Social media is an echo chamber, where people hear things and share them without checking. Pretty soon, something is so widely viewed that it doesn't matter that it's false. People believe it.
I don't know the solution to that problem and I don't know the specifics of how Facebook could gather information on information that is shared. But the fact that Facebook tailors advertising specifically to your posts indicates the company is capable of doing better.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.
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