How Facebook likes are calculated • Hacker News Board

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#21

Post by ksablan » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:15 PM UTC

AdamTReineke wrote: post #3

Are there privacy options that hide the details of the likes from his tool (so he can't count them) that Facebook can count and display in the widgets? Might account for some of the difference.

Actually, all of the likes, shares and comments were accounted for (the parts added up to the sum) for each of the articles I examined. But there were a few sites for which my button simply didn't work. I'm not sure how those sites were able to do that.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#22

Post by monochromatic » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:18 PM UTC

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

> The number of inbox messages containing this URL as an attachment.

I LOVE that they do this.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#23

Post by brendano » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:23 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #22

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

> The number of inbox messages containing this URL as an attachment. I LOVE that they do this.

It's fascinating! It would be great to have this information from just normal email -- the data's been there for many years -- but does it seem like privacy invasion then? There doesn't seem to be any difference...

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#24

Post by ricree » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:29 PM UTC

jckay wrote: post #20

Interesting...First of @Ksablan - you did use the word Lie...and secondly while at first i thought it was a huge deal...its really not. The point of the metric is social sharing...and Comments, likes and shares are all social sharing you know? No need to get more granular than that i think

Unless the post has been edited since, I don't see anywhere in the post where says the word lie.

As to your second point, it depends on how the number is being presented. If it's being shown as the number of recommendations, then including the number of comments is clearly inaccurate. A comment disagreeing with an article does say something as a useful metric, but it certainly isn't a recommendation.

Not a particularly big deal in the long run, but I still think the article has a point.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#25

Post by sp332 » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:48 PM UTC

brendano wrote: post #23

monochromatic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of inbox messages containing this URL as an attachment. I LOVE that they do this.

It's fascinating! It would be great to have this information from just normal email -- the data's been there for many years -- but does it seem like privacy invasion then? There doesn't seem to be any difference...

My mail feels private, Facebook doesn't. A lot of people complained loudly when Google started scanning the text of emails to display "relevant" ads. My guess is, there will not be very many people complaining about this.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#26

Post by klochner » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 2:50 PM UTC

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

More Orwellian than deceitful, because they're using "liked" to represent the aggregate when "likes" is already its own metric, which happens to be lower than the aggregate.

It's kind of funny really - 'did you mean "liked" or "likes"?'

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#27

Post by atacrawl » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #18

atacrawl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but if you take "like" to mean "validate," then that logic does hold -- even if you hate an article you're sharing, you're still validating it.

Like does not mean validate though. You may as well say if friend means totally random person you've only met once. Oh, wait...

The reality of what "like" represents indicates otherwise.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#28

Post by joelhaasnoot » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

They round off after 1000 Likes/Shares/Comments anyway (the widget reads 1K for more than 1000, etc.), so many people won't expect it to be a perfect statistic.

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#29

Post by joelhaasnoot » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:29 PM UTC

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

I wonder what happens when I like and then comment on an item. Is that counted twice?

Re: How Facebook likes are calculated

#30

Post by wicknicks » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 3:44 PM UTC

ry0ohki wrote: post #14

The topic makes FB sound deceitful, but they don't hide this information, it says it right here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ The number shown is the sum of: -The number of likes of this URL -The number of shares of this URL (this includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook) -The number of likes and comments on stories on Facebook about this URL -The number of inbox messages containi…

I would imagine that they find it easier to compute the aggregate and display it rather than maintain different values and display it to people (probably helps them at the scale at which they operate? -- lesser things they show, lesser damage it does?).