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I think it's largely impossible for him to sift through this data accurately. Who is to say that diff people didn't share something vs liking it? Also he makes it seem as if the news sites are falsely reoresenting their content popularity when all they are doing is presenting a fb social widget.

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I don't see too big of a problem with it regardless. If you spend your time liking, sharing, or commenting on something there is obviously an 'emotional' response to it. As long as FB doesn't start saying 'your friend x' likes this, when in fact they posted a comment disagreeing there isn't a huge problem. Even then I think the fact that it created a response of some sort is a 'like', atleast in the sense people I see use the like button..

For most purposes, yes. But the author called out news reporting that quotes these "stats". Its important for journalists to understand the differences.

I agree that number is still a good number to track, but it just isn't what it appears to be. Sure, Facebook spells it out in their docs, but most people won't ever see that documentation. The fact that the number appears next to the word "like" implies that it is the number of "likes."

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