Facebook suppressed report that made it look bad
On Wednesday, Facebook released a report about what content was most viewed by people in the US last quarter. It was the first time it had released such a report. But according to The New York Times, Facebook was working on a similar report for the first quarter of 2021 that it opted not to share because it might have reflected poorly on the company.
The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the report, says that the most-viewed link in the first quarter had a headline that could promote COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which has been an issue on the social media platform. The headline read, “A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why.” The article was published by The South Florida Sun Sentinel and republished by The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times says.
Facebook was working on releasing this report, but executives, including Alex Schultz, Facebook’s CMO and VP of analytics, apparently “debated whether it would cause a public relations problem, according to the internal emails” and ultimately decided not to publish it, The New York Times reported.
“We considered making the report public earlier but since we knew the attention it would garner, exactly as we saw this week, there were fixes to the system we wanted to make,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement. Stone also clarified Schultz’s opinion on if Facebook should release the report, saying that Schultz “advocated for putting out the report.”
It’s been a busy week for Facebook. In addition to publishing the report about the top-viewed posts, it has also had to contend with an amended antitrust complaint filed against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.
On Wednesday, Facebook released a report about what content was most viewed by people in the US last quarter. It was the first time it had released such a report. But according to The New York Times, Facebook was working on a similar report for the first quarter of 2021…
Recent Posts
- How to watch Apple’s May 2024 iPad launch event
- Quordle today – hints and answers for Sunday, April 28 (game #825)
- NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, April 28 (game #56)
- In the first Autonomous Racing League race, the struggle was real
- The Apple Vision Pro’s eBay prices are making me sad
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011