Facebook released its first “widely viewed content” report, a study that tries to show what material is most widely distributed on the social network at a time when brands are concerned about how much disinformation and unsavory content courses through the social network.

On Wednesday, Facebook revealed what websites and Pages accounted for the most widely viewed content in people’s News Feeds, which is the personalized stream of posts delivered to 1.9 billion daily users. The report covered Facebook posts in the second quarter, and it will be updated quarterly as part of Facebook’s Community Standards Enforcement Report, which details how much content Facebook removes for violating policies on hate speech, violence, nudity and other areas.

Wednesday’s analysis was one of the first times Facebook has provided an overview of what Pages and websites get the greatest exposure. The report was met with some skepticism, however, because it did not dive into specifics about the content that sees the most engagement, including likes, shares and comments. In the report, Facebook defined a “content view” as “what is counted whenever a piece of content appears in News Feed.”

Also on Wednesday, Facebook disclosed that it has removed 20 million-plus posts related to COVID-19 misinformation since the start of the pandemic through June. The social network and its social media peers including Twitter and YouTube have been scrutinized for how they distribute critical information to the public. There have been ongoing concerns that social platforms have been hotbeds of crank medical advice and hurt public education efforts to combat COVID-19 with responsible vaccine and hygiene information.

The “widely viewed content” report, meanwhile, listed the top 20 domains, links, Pages and posts on Facebook. Under domains, YouTube content was the most widely distributed in News Feeds, followed by Amazon, UNICEF, GoFundMe and Twitter. Facebook did not give details however into areas including what type of YouTube videos received the most views or which GoFundMe campaigns were most visible.

The top Facebook Pages named in the report included wholesome publishers The Dodo and Woof Woof, which share pet-focused posts, and spiritual content creators such as Sun Gazing and A Woman's Soul.

Push to counter perceptions

Facebook’s content analysis was part of a push by the social network to counter perceptions that it is overrun by non-credible news and hot-button politics. The subject is a concern for brands that worry about running ads in a charged environment. Facebook has been working on new brand safety tools in News Feed that allow brands to avoid topics in the news, so their ads do not appear above or below posts related to subjects including crime and tragedy, news and politics and social issues.

Facebook has been trying to show that the risk of appearing near those subjects is low, as stated in the new report. Facebook said that 87% of News Feed content views in the U.S. were of posts that didn’t even have links. Facebook said that 0.3% of News Feed content views in the U.S. were on posts with links from the most-viewed news domains.

“The majority of News Feed content views in the U.S. were on posts without links and were from content viewers' friends or from Groups they were connected to,” Facebook said in the report. “Content that did not come from friends, Pages people followed, or Groups that they were a part of, also referred to as unconnected posts, made up a relatively minor percentage of content views.”

Media outlets and watchdogs have criticized Facebook’s algorithm for seemingly boosting questionable viewpoints including anti-vaccination conspiracies and election misinformation.

Kevin Roose, New York Times tech columnist, maintains a Twitter account dedicated to the top-performing links on Facebook, which often includes right-wing personalities including Ben Shapiro, Nick Adams and fans of Donald Trump, who was famously booted from Facebook after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Roose’s analysis is based on CrowdTangle, which is an analytics platform owned by Facebook.

Facebook claimed that its latest report coupled with CrowdTangle data provides a more complete picture of the type of content on the platform.

Roose was critical of Facebook’s internal analysis. “Reach data isn't totally useless,” Roose said on Twitter. “It can help us understand what's being recommended vs. actively sought out. But the way this report is structured (domain-level data, quarterly aggregates, lumping news/entertainment together) makes it hard to know what's actually going on.”