Fun Zuckbook Fact: TikTok Content Is Really Popular on Facebook

September 5, 2022

I read “It Sure Must Sting for TikToks to Be the Some of the Most Viewed Links on Facebook.” The article is quite interesting, and I want to highlight it because it reveals an interesting facet of online behavior.

The write up points out:

In its newly-released second quarter “Widely Viewed Content Report,” which focuses on U.S. content that appears in users’ feeds, Meta reported that TikTok.com—literally, just the link to the domain itself—accounted for 35.9 million views in users’ feeds. TikTok also made it into Facebook’s most widely viewed domains, where it took the fourth spot, garnering 108 million views.

If accurate, this is like buying a Wall Street Journal for business news and finding that 20 percent or more of the “content” was Google ads for Alphabet services. Where’s the news? one might ask. Well, the presence of the Google full page advertisements is the news in my opinion. But the analogy is imperfect because Facebook’s users are promoting TikTok for free!

I found this statement both interesting and amusing:

… a good chunk of the content being viewed on Facebook is reposted stuff from somewhere else, yesterday’s tired memes. (I’m not talking about posts from your high school friends or your Aunt Dolores, but rather the videos, media, information, etc.) This was echoed by Technology Review, which also noted that the content on Facebook is very spammy.

Observation:

Facebook is promoting its users to use TikTok… inadvertently.
New, interesting content is appearing on TikTok. Does this mean Facebook is subliminally suggestion, “Hey, go directly to TikTok and get this stuff in real time?”
TikTok may be allegedly China-linked but the firm has lawyers. Is this reposting functioning as a stream of useful data and setting up Meta for a copyright allegation of improper reuse?

I am not sure is “must sting” captures what this situation causes. Kidney stone, colonoscopy, or something similar.

Stephen E Arnold, September 5, 2022

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Facebook, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.