If you have been logged on to your Facebook account on your mobile last Friday, you might have noticed something different on your page. Next to the "Like" and "Comment" links below your post, there is a view count revealing exactly how many people have viewed the specific post.
According to The Verge, the bug was something Facebook did not intend for you to see. Although several social media platforms such as Twitter, Vine, and YouTube allow view counts, Facebook insists on not making personal accounts a popularity contest. The only way Facebook users could know their reach is through the number of people who have liked and posted comments.
Perhaps, as suggested by Telegraph UK, Facebook may be avoiding self-esteem issues, especially among teens who are its biggest users. If a teenager saw that his or her post only garnered 100 views as compared to a peer who generated thousands, this could lead to severe social pressure and even bullying. In fact, a 2013 study conducted by Standford University and Facebook's data science team revealed that on average, users are only able to reach around 35 percent of their friends per post.
On the other hand, organizations and businesses on the site are eager to know exactly how many people their groups are reaching and how much exposure they are getting. However, by accepting Facebook's terms, users agree that whatever content they share and upload are going to a feed that is controlled by algorithms only people in Facebook can view and manage.
This conundrum remains to be one of the biggest challenges of the world's largest networking site. And, for a small amount of time, users got a glimpse on their popularity--or the opposite--through the bug.
The glitch has since been fixed, and is unlikely to be happening again.
