The story brings up other possible factors too, such as the nature of the engagement and the types of users (individual, as opposed to publishers) who were re-sharing it. Sensational headline alone isn't an end-all explanation for why a brief from a radio station w/ 7,000 followers would go viral.
John Mulaney has a skit in his I'm New In Town special that I think sums this phenomenon up.
> there’s a hierarchy in the New York Post [...] different people that they don’t like. [...]And if you pay attention, you can start to identify some of the rankings that they have.
> [...]Um, the number one thing that you can be in the eyes of the New York Post is an angel. An angel is a child who has died. That is the best thing that you can be in the eyes of the New York Post.
> [...]Down towards the bottom of the spectrum, there are pervs. Pervs touch tots
People are drawn to news about "bad guys" and for some reason, sexual predators seem to be the most compelling kid of bad guy. Which likely also explains their popularity in crime drama plots.
There were some pretty interesting things in the sharing patterns, which probably warrant more analysis. (Short version: the post produced lots of comments, lots of users directly tagging one another, and a high "user share" to "site/brand share" ratio.) At a glance, all of those things imply that in addition to rewarding personal/organic discussion, Facebook is implicitly rewarding inflammatory, false, or satirical stories; scary crime stories and outrageous jokes are the sort of things that make people tag each other instead of just liking a post.
I'm irritated, though, that the article can't offer any support for any of those claims. I understand that Facebook isn't forthcoming about their algorithms, but there are several hints that this piece is trying to build a "scary evil social media" narrative rather than simply seeking answers. In particular, the line "While no sources I talked to suggested this..." looks like journalistic shorthand for "No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a sourced quote with which to claim that..."
This story is definitely more interesting than a simple clickbait headline, but I'm reluctant to trust the specific theories on offer here.
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
Is that the same rabid, uncritical 47% who spent the last couple of years screaming about Russian collusion? I wonder what slate.com has to say about that.
