Facebook is in turmoil.

According to a

New York Times

article on

Friday, the California giant concealed a report which showed that the most viewed link on the platform in the United States in the first quarter of 2021 was a press headline suggesting a correlation between an anti-Covid vaccine and the death of a doctor in Florida.

This report was initially supposed to be released but senior officials of the Californian group chose to put it aside "for fear that it would give a bad image of the company", writes the American daily, relying on internal emails .

The revelation falls badly for the giant of social networks, which regularly denies contributing to the spread of disinformation, in particular around the pandemic and vaccines.

NEW w / @ rmac18: Facebook released its first-ever quarterly report on Widely Viewed Content this week.

But an earlier report from Q1 existed and was shelved, bc execs were scared it would make the company look bad.

https://t.co/SYcqhb7MQK

- Davey Alba (@daveyalba) August 20, 2021

An article seen by 54 million people

“We considered releasing the (Q1) report earlier this year but as we knew the attention it would get, (…) we wanted to make repairs to the system,” a Facebook spokesperson commented. . On Wednesday, Facebook released the report for the first time titled “Most Viewed Content: What People See on Facebook”… But for the second quarter.

A crossword puzzle, YouTube and Unicef ​​top the categories. “This effort (…) is a key element of our deep commitment to transparency,” said Anna Stepanov, a Facebook Product Director, during a press conference call. She said the group would now publish this report on a quarterly basis, in addition to the statistics that the group has become accustomed to providing on content moderation.

The most viewed link in the first trimester was to a

Chicago Tribune

article titled “Healthy Doctor Dies Two Weeks After Receiving Covid-19 Vaccine; CDC is investigating ”. The CDC, Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, is the country's main federal public health agency. This title had been seen by nearly 54 million Facebook accounts in the United States.

The debate on medical disinformation has grown to such proportions that in July, Joe Biden estimated that Facebook and other platforms were "killing" people by letting circulate false information on the vaccination against the Covid-19.

The response from Mark Zuckerberg's group was scathing: "The facts show that Facebook helps save lives, period."

The American president then qualified his remarks.

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