Meta published its most recent overview of content violation, hacking attempt, and feed engagement. This includes the usual array of statistics and notes about what people see on Facebook, the things they report, and the topics that are getting the greatest attention.
The Widely Viewed Content Report for Q4 of 2024, for example, includes all the usual jewels like:
Publishers have less than great news. 97.9% percent of views on Facebook in the U.S. for Q4 2024 did not include a link from a third-party source.
Meta’s Q3 2021 Widely Viewed Content Report shows that 86% of posts in the feeds do not contain a link to an external app.
Meta has also started to deprioritize links in an effort to get away from the news. It may change this again, now that the company is looking to bring back more political discussions to its app. The data shows, for now at least, that the environment is still pretty link-averse.
This is a major reason why Facebook traffic dropped.
These top 10 most-viewed links also reveal the usual array of junky stuff that somehow appeals to the Facebook audience.
Mark Wahlberg shared a photo of his Christmas family, Neil Patrick Harris performed a song for Christmas. The usual supermarket tabloids and syrupy stories of holiday sentiment dominate the Facebook conversation.
As in: “Child asks Santa Claus to help mom instead of asking for toys”.
It’s sweet, yes, but it is also ugh.
It’s not much better for the top posts.
You can take inspiration from the pages of celebrity magazines if you’re looking to gain traction on Facebook. Displays of “intelligence” or virtue are still popular, but not as much.
You can do with it what you want.
Meta reported an increase of Violent and Graphic Content in Instagram as a result of its new rules. “proactive detection technology.”
It also appears to be a cause for concern.
Meta also says fake accounts represented “approximately 3% of the worldwide active monthly users (MAUs) on Facebook in Q4 2024.” ”
This is only noteworthy because Meta has set this standard at 5%. There’s really no way to determine it accurately. Meta has revised the figure down. This could indicate that Meta is more confident with its detection process. It could have changed its base number.
Meta shared an interesting message:
This report does not contain any information about the policy and enforcement changes that were made in January of 2025. We have monitored those changes, but so far haven’t seen any significant impact on the prevalence of content that violates laws. This new approach has also reduced enforcement errors. “
Meta has made a controversial change to its Community Notes system, removing the fact-checking of third parties. Meta also revised certain policies, relating in particular to hate speech. These changes, it seems, are more in line with what Trump Administration prefers.
Meta claims that the result has not led to any major changes in terms of content, or at least, it doesn’t yet. However, it does ban fewer accounts accidentally.
What do you think? It sounds like a good change.
Right?
It probably means nothing.
Meta’s fewer errors in enforcement is not surprising, since it will be doing less overall enforcement, and therefore, mistakes are bound to decrease. The real question is not whether Meta’s enforcement will be less mistaken, but if it remains consistent as the model shifts from a supervisory to one with fewer restrictions on speech.
The statement is more or less meaningless and a retort for those who have criticized this change.
Meta has detected a number of small-scale threats in Q4 that originated from Benin Ghana and China.
This explanation in Meta’s review of an influence operation based in Russia called “Doppleganger”, that it has been following for years, was perhaps more noteworthy:
Starting in mid-November the operators stopped targeting the U.S.A., Ukraine, and Poland through our applications. The focus is still on Germany, France and Israel, with isolated attempts at targeting people from other countries. According to open-source reporting, Doppelganger appears not to have made the same switch on other platforms.”
After the U.S. presidential election, it seems as though Russian influence operations have stopped trying to influence sentiments in the U.S. It seems like a significant shift.
If you want to know what is resonating with Facebook users and how its safety initiatives have changed, then Meta’s Transparency Center will give you all the latest data.
