Facebook releases shelved content transparency report after criticism it wasnt being transparent

Facebook released a report (.pdf) late Saturday about its most-viewed posts in the first quarter of 2021 that it had initially shelved reportedly because it made the company look bad.

As first reported by the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the Q1 report before Facebook released it, the most-viewed link on Facebook between January and March of this year was a since-updated news story that suggested a Florida doctor’s death may be linked to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Facebook policy communications manager Andy Stone tweeted Saturday that the criticism Facebook received for not releasing the report “wasn’t unfair,” but tried to unpack the complexities of how it handled that most-viewed link:

“News outlets wrote about the south...

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