Is it 2017 yet? No? Damn. Well, we’re almost there, but before the year from hell officially comes to an end, the giants from the technology world want us to reflect on the 12 months past. Earlier this week, it was Twitter, now it’s Facebook’s turn.
As has become customary each year, Facebook has crunched some data to show what the most “talked about” topics on the social network were in 2016. The top 10 moments were measured by how often they were mentioned in Facebook posts between January 1 and November 27, 2016. “Mentions were analyzed in an aggregated, anonymized way and then ranked to create a snapshot of the year on Facebook,” explained Sheida Neman, data analyst at Facebook, in a blog post.
It probably won’t surprise you all that much to discover that top honors went to the “U.S. presidential election,” an event that led to extensive theories and debates about the role Facebook played in spreading “fake news” that influenced the outcome of the election.
At number two in Facebook’s list was “Brazilian politics,” propelled by a number of notable events across the country in 2016 — including President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment.
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Undoubtedly, one of the runaway hits in the game / app world in 2016 was Pokémon Go, which garnered a cult-like global following over the past six months. It may have been snubbed by Apple in favor of Clash Royale as its iPhone Game of the Year, but it was the third most discussed topic on Facebook, and the only strictly technology-related subject to enter the top 10.
The full top 10 list is as follows:
- U.S. Presidential Election
- Brazilian Politics
- Pokémon Go
- Black Lives Matter
- Rodrigo Duterte and Philippine Presidential Election
- Olympics
- Brexit
- Super Bowl
- David Bowie
- Muhammad Ali
Consistent with its big push into live video, Facebook has also published the top most viewed videos in 2016, with Candace Payne as Chewbacca Mom coming out on top.
Sticking to tradition, Facebook is once again publishing “Year in Review” videos for each of its billion-plus users, pulling together some of their personal highlights of 2016.
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