Facebook releases report on the most viewed content

Facebook has published the ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’ which gives an overview of the most viewed content in the US news feed. The report will be updated quarterly in the platform transparency center and comes as a response to critics that say the platform’s posts with the most views are from right-wing sources. 

The report informs that the most-viewed post is a letter scramble that invites Facebook users to pick out the first three words they see. The second most-viewed post asks users older than 30 to publish a picture of themselves if they look young. Overall, the majority of posts that users see is from their family and friends (57%), which is aligned to the changes the platform made in the past so that content from friends and family remains a larger portion of News Feed. Moreover, fewer than 13% of content views were on posts with links. Finally, the platform states that the most-viewed pages are focused on sharing content about pets, cooking, family, and relatable viral content.

Critics say that there is a difference between what users see on the platform and what they interact with. The report does not shed light into interactions even though what users interact with is what likely affects them the most. Users are more likely to remember something they commented on than something they scrolled past.