In the "Widely Viewed Content Report", Facebook provides the 20 individual links and 20 individual posts that were seen by the highest number of people, in the US, for the quarter. In this dashboard, we are tracking objective properties of these 20 posts, links, and the producers behind them, as well as the extent to which it is possible for Facebook users to assess the content from a media literacy perspective.

The media literacy checks we perform are:

1. Identity Transparency: Can we find the name of a person or business responsible for the post or link, or is the account totally anonymous? This could come in the form of the name of the person behind the account, or lists of company leadership for publishers.

2. Content Production: Is the content in the post or link, or content used to share the link, original and created by the account that posted it? Or is the content unoriginal, in that the account is simply aggregating content that previously went viral on another platform?

3. Account Networking: Is the account behind the post or link engaging in "account networking", meaning are they running several different Facebook Pages or Groups, with different names and brands, that are all posting the same or highly similar content?

If a post or link fails any of these checks, meaning either the account behind them is anonymous, posting unoriginal content they have aggregated from other sources, or using spammy Page or Group Networks to distribute the content, then we label the post and link as having failed our media literacy checks.

We have analyzed all three of the Widely Viewed Content Reports, and so we present here the trends and changes in the information ecosystem quality on Facebook. Please read our complete write up of our analysis here, which also includes links to the raw data that is powering these charts.

We are the Integrity Institute, a think tank powered by a community of integrity professionals. We have the experience and expertise that comes from tackling harms on the social internet from within, working for the platforms and social media companies. Learn more about us at integrityinstitute.org.

The Integrity Institute is a project of Community Partners.