For two years in a row, Facebook’s most talked-about moment was International Women’s Day. On Thursday, December 6, Facebook shared the 2018 Year in Review, a report looking at the most talked-about moments on the social platform over the past year. The report offers insight into users most-voiced concerns, which this year ranged from gun control to elections in the U.S. and Brazil.
Just like in 2017, International Women’s Day was the most discussed moment of 2018. While the event remained a top moment on the platform, Facebook says the discussion shifted this year — instead of talking about the day, more of the discussion centered on women’s issues and causes.
More than one million people responded to an event for The March for Our Lives movement that followed the Parkland school shooting in Florida. Facebook says the conversation around the movement was worldwide. Along with being among one of the biggest events of the year, Facebook says that users raised more than $2.5 million for a related cause through different fundraisers on the network.
The Brazilian presidential election and the U.S. midterm election finished off the list of the most discussed issues on Facebook in 2018.
Facebook data also shed light on some of the most popular celebratory moments over the past year. More than 383 million Facebook users shared on the World Cup, with around 2.3 billion posts, comments, reactions, and shares on the soccer championship. That topped the 62 million people talking about the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl 52 victory and the 42 million Facebookers discussing Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.
Facebook says users over the past year also honored the passing of several influential icons, including Aretha Franklin, Avicii, Dolores O’Riordan, Stephen Hawking, Anthony Bourdain, and Burt Reynolds. Celebrating Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday was also one of the top evens honoring icons this year.
Facebook compiled the list by taking the most popular keywords shared between January 1 and November 11 and compared the data with last year’s. The network compared those numbers to last year’s to eliminate keywords that are popular every year, such as those for holidays like Mother’s Day and Halloween.
Outside of what users on the network have posted about over the last year, 2018 was a rough year for the network as Facebook faced the backlash from multiple privacy scandals, including the Cambridge Analytica debacle. While growth for Facebook slowed this year, the company still reached a 2.5-billion user milestone across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
