Top 10 Facebook news stories of 2012

Following a list of the top 10 Twitter news stories of 2012, here is a list of this year's top 10 most shared, commented and 'liked' news stories on Facebook, based on URL data.

To compile this list we analysed data for UK news outlets BBC News, the Guardian, the Independent, Mail Online and the Telegraph*. We used SEO and social data tool Searchmetrics. The downloaded data is at this link.

As with the top 10 Facebook news stories of 2011, this year's list demonstrates that it is often quirky stories that do well on Facebook.

The top 10 most shared, commented and liked Facebook news articles of 2012

1. Mail Online - Cats away! Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car = 296,154

2. Mail Online - Egypt's 'plans for farewell intercourse law so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives' branded completely false = 258,740 (note: the actual URL which received this number of shares, comments and likes differs to the URL which now appears in its place when clicked on. For example, the original URL did not contain the words "branded completely false", but now does. The article itself has also been "edited to deal with complaints that our original was inaccurate", according to a note at the end of the article, where the title also makes an apology to readers. Journalism.co.uk does not know the details of these edits but Poynter has more on this here. This note applies to all further mentions of this story below.

3. BBC News - Driving school for dogs in New Zealand (video) = 247,561

4. Mail Online - 'There are downsides to looking this pretty': Why women hate me for being beautiful (Samantha Brick) = 214,851

5. Guardian - Top five regrets of the dying = 179,720

6. BBC News - Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president = 146,849

7. Mail Online - Think you are ready to have children? Hilarious new parent test taking mummy blogs by storm MIGHT just put you off... = 120,630

8. Mail Online - Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you (and they include 'pork', 'cloud' and 'Mexico') = 114,524

9. Mail Online - Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City = 108,979

10. Mail Online - Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it = 101,454

Top 10 most shared news articles on Facebook in 2012

1. Guardian - Top five regrets of the dying = 82,569

2. BBC News - Driving school for dogs in New Zealand (video) = 81118

3. Mail Online - Cats away! Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car = 73,763

4. Mail Online - 'Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia', claims plus-size magazine in powerful comment on body image in the fashion industry = 54,871

5. BBC News - Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president = 48114

6. BBC News - The myth of the eight-hour sleep = 47,072

7. Mail Online - Egypt's 'plans for farewell intercourse law so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives' branded completely false = 44,740 (see notes above)

8. Mail Online - Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you (and they include 'pork', 'cloud' and 'Mexico') = 42,794

9. Mail Online - Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it = 30,042

10. Mail Online - Think you are ready to have children? Hilarious new parent test taking mummy blogs by storm MIGHT just put you off... = 29,969

Top 10 most 'liked' articles on Facebook in 2012

1. BBC News - Driving school for dogs in New Zealand (video) = 89,397

2. BBC News - Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president = 75,990

3. Guardian - Titanic anniversary: A maiden voyage that ended in tragedy (blog archive) = 70,841

4. Mail Online - Cats away! Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car = 68,282

5. Guardian - Top five regrets of the dying = 66,640

6. Mail Online - Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City = 55,371

7. Mail Online - Think you are ready to have children? Hilarious new parent test taking mummy blogs by storm MIGHT just put you off... = 50,250

8. BBC News - An 86-year-old, real-life Robinson Crusoe (video) = 46,163

9. Mail Online - San Franfrazzled: Once-in-a-lifetime picture of lightning striking iconic bridge (image) = 49,768

10. BBC News - Questions raised over London 2012 Olympic boxing scores = 44,882

Top 10 most commented news articles on Facebook in 2012

1. Mail Online - Egypt's 'plans for farewell intercourse law so husbands can have sex with DEAD wives' branded completely false = 183,926 (see notes above)

2. Mail Online - Cats away! Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car = 154,109

3. Mail Online - 'There are downsides to looking this pretty': Why women hate me for being beautiful (Samantha Brick) = 151,557

4. BBC News - Driving school for dogs in New Zealand (video) = 77,046

5. BBC News - Where are you on the global fat scale? (interactive) = 57,594

6. Mail Online - Thousands of pills filled with powdered human baby flesh discovered by customs officials in South Korea = 54,193

7. Mail Online - Woman, 22, given two life sentences for allowing professor, 49, to have sex with her five-month-old daughter = 45,391

8. Mail Online - Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you (and they include 'pork', 'cloud' and 'Mexico') = 44,016

9. Mail Online - Think you are ready to have children? Hilarious new parent test taking mummy blogs by storm MIGHT just put you off... = 40,4011

10. Mail Online - Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it = 40,254

*We also looked at data for the Sun, the Mirror and the Metro. The sites did not have stories that had been shared, 'liked' and commented on enough to appear in this list.

Explore the data for the five sites at this link.

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