A bug in Facebook accidentally shows how popular your posts are

Facebook is diligently attempting to remove a software bug that lets users of their mobile website see view counts for their own and others’ posts within the Facebook social network.

Facebook currently displays the number of views under videos posted on the Facebook site, but this software bug goes beyond that and lets one see the number of views on any article or video link, this also includes those from news media and other official organizational pages. The bottom line of this revelation, is the realization that nothing you say or share will ever be as popular among your friend group as a arbitrary article or a video on how to make ramen fries.

Currently, the software bug, only affects Facebook’s mobile site, and not Facebook for conventional desktop PCs or the company’s official mobile apps. It has been confirmed by Facebook that the software bug is removing the view counts from user posts.

Facebook claims to have no future plans to let individual users see view counts. Part of consequence of using the Facebook social network is the understanding that you’re feeding content into a black box, controlled by a mysterious and proprietary software algorithms the user has no control over and is not allowed to understand.

In 2013, A Stanford University study conducted by assistant professor Michael S. Bernstein and Facebook’s data science team has revealed that the average Facebook user only reaches about 35 percent of their friends with a single post and over the course of a month, the average user will reach barely two out of every three friends.

This problem effects other media organizations and other page owners that have been with Facebook for years. Users that have invested heavily with their followers in obtaining and growing their number of likes on their page are often shocked to only have the social network charge them for reaching more than a small fraction of their audience.

But Facebook holds the control and the keys to their News Feed. For now that’s how it goes. Until, of course a bug comes along, and we see just how popular — or not — you really are in your Facebook network.