Facing calls to crack down on extremist content spread on its platform, Facebook did something it has long refused to do: release a list of its most-viewed links. The tech behemoth published its first quarterly Widely Viewed Content Report, featuring its top 20 pages, links and posts. The top links range from the ordinary (charity donation pages, recipes, cute cat videos) to the bizarre (a writing prompt from actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, crossword memes, yahoo.com). However, for privacy reasons, it only takes the data from public posts rather than posts in private groups where a lot of political content is shared. Facebook says the aim is to “hold ourselves accountable”, but critics say it’s the company’s latest attempt to discredit claims about harmful content on its platform. Overnight Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said more than 18 million posts containing misinformation about COVID-19 had been removed from their website, but he didn’t say how many times the posts had been viewed or shared.

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