There were some pretty interesting things in the sharing patterns, which probably warrant more analysis. (Short version: the post produced lots of comments, lot

There were some pretty interesting things in the sharing patterns, which probably warrant more analysis. (Short version: the post produced lots of comments, lots of users directly tagging one another, and a high "user share" to "site/brand share" ratio.) At a glance, all of those things imply that in addition to rewarding personal/organic discussion, Facebook is implicitly rewarding inflammatory, false, or satirical stories; scary crime stories and outrageous jokes are the sort of things that make people tag each other instead of just liking a post. I'm irritated, though, that the article can't offer any support for any of those claims. I understand that Facebook isn't forthcoming about their algorithms, but there are several hints that this piece is trying to build a "scary evil social media" narrative rather than simply seeking answers. In particular, the line "While no sources I talked to suggested this..." looks like journalistic shorthand for "No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a sourced quote with which to claim that..." This story is definitely more interesting than a simple clickbait headline, but I'm reluctant to trust the specific theories on offer here.