Meta recently published the latest version of its ‘Widely Viewed Content’ report, which aims to dispel the notion that Facebook’s algorithms favor divisive, argumentative, and political content, with the actual data saying that what the majority of Facebook users really see in their Feeds is, in fact, mundane.
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The report has thus far been a rather interesting experiment for Meta, with its earlier versions have shown that a lot of the most viewed posts and Stories were actually, eventually removed for violating Meta’s terms of service, so while Meta looks to highlight that it doesn’t benefit from helping spread harmful information. In some respects, it has even done the exact opposite.
For the most part, the report shows viewers which posts generally get the most traction on Facebook, revealing such to be light, humorous content – there are no politics to clutter or dominate the Feed. Then again, as we’ve found out, what does gain more traction isn’t necessarily a whole lot better.
As far as content consumption went in Q4, the most widely viewed domains were YouTube and TikTok. Of course, no further details exist on which videos from both saw the most links – it could well be that all of these videos were all conspiracies and propaganda. But the data does show that video content still performs well on Facebook, even if not posted natively.
When it comes to specific links, Stories about celebrities dominated, along with a report on the closure of Splash Mountain, twins born from frozen embryos, a woman who ‘bought nothing for an entire year’, and presenters getting snarky on live crosses. To be fair, this cross-section of widely viewed Stories is way less spammy and trashy than in its previous iteration, while there are also no Stories that had been later removed for crossing Meta’s policies. That speaks of Meta’s efforts in detecting and removing such even before they catch on, while it’s also seemingly leaning further into these more light-hearted Stories, as opposed to political content.
Meta did try to cut out political content entirely after CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided that it was no longer worth the headache. However, user feedback showed that people do want some semblance of political news on their Feeds. Meta has since compromised, displaying some political reports, but to a significantly less degree.
The Wrap
The data here does seem to reflect that observation, somewhat reassuring that the top Stories are mostly gossip magazine-style articles, versus straight-up misinformation or partisan politics. Playing on nostalgia and the general feel-good vibes of more lighthearted posts is the winning factor here, which might sound mundane, but you can’t beat statistics – many Facebook users clearly jive with this approach. If you’re on the lookout for ideas that work on Facebook, then look no further.
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