Facebook Really Really Wants You To Know It's Not That Bad. Really.

Facebook has published their first ever "Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See On Facebook." The report is published in the brand's "Transparency Center" and mentions "transparency" five times. It also manages to underscore one main data point multiple times: "Only about 12.9% of News Feed content views in the US during Q2 2021 were on posts that contain links." In other words, they REALLY want you to know that the platform isn't the hotbed for misinformation link sharing that people think it is.

The report is a classic piece of beat-you-over-the-head corporate PR aimed at shifting perception. Unfortunately, the data has some pretty obvious flaws. Consider another stat from the report: "the vast majority of content viewed in News Feed during Q2 2021 (87.1%) did not include a link to a source outside of Facebook."

Firstly, this conveniently ignores the fact that even posts without links can also spread misinformation. And secondly, the remaining 12.9% of posts that DO include links represent a HUGE amount of shared content that can influence perceptions, particularly if these percentages shift regionally.