Facebook has been hit by a bug that shows the view counts for posts shared across the social platform. The issue appears only on the mobile website.
Limited number of users affected
Below every post shared on the profile, view counts are visible. It shows in a manner similar to how the video counts are showed below every video shared on Facebook, according to users who reported the issue. Marvin Ronsdorf, a Twitter user, shared a screenshot showing the view counts of the posts shared by footballers Christiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi.
So far, the bug has not been reported to hit any desktop user or Facebook app user on mobile, the report says. It appears that only a limited number of users accessing the social network are impacted by the bug as the reports of the problem on Facebook mobile are not widespread. For some users, the view counts are appearing right under the photo posts, while for the others they appear in their News Feed.
A tacit acceptance with Facebook
View counts for each post can be used for seeing how many users actually see the posts, and at the same time it can also be a reality check on how many people actually saw the post and cared to respond with a like or comment. View counts are visible only under a shared or posted links, and also under photos, and it is also unclear if the number shown is actually correct.
Facebook does not have any future plans to let individual users see the view count on their posts, as Facebook users already have a tacit acceptance of feeding content into a black box controlled by some mysterious series of algorithms, says the report.
In 2013, assistant professor Michael S. Bernstein and Facebook’s data science team conducted a study at Stanford University which found that the average Facebook user is able to reach only about 35% of their friends with a single post. This means that over a course of a month, an average user will only reach out to two of every three friends.
As of around 11.40 am EDT Thursday, Facebook shares were up 1.81% at $95.78. Year to date, the stock is up almost 21% while over the last year, shares are in the green almost 31%.
