I just checked their Facebook and X page. The X page is getting much more eyes. For instance, they posted their article "The FAA’s “Temporary” Flight Restriction for Drones is a Blatant Attempt to Criminalize Filming ICE" to both accounts. The results:
I think it has been proven again and again that these "engagement numbers" are a mix of bots, social media company itself trying to inflate the numbers, and real engagement. Unless there is an impartial third party, these numbers are there to attract advertisers. In this situation, I would trust the source themselves, i.e. account holders.
Yeah, the idea that this is simply, mostly or even partly about engagement/eyes is bunk on it's face. I'd even argue it a bad faith position to defend.
That assumption is only true if there is no manipulation of likes. I believe that the presence of bot farms has been extensively documented by now, which should disprove the usefulness of likes on any social media platform nowadays.
You are making lots of assumptions when evaluating GitHub projects that you aren’t writing here.
GH stars can indicate: which of many forks of a repo might be the most active, which of many projects in a category might be the most used/trusted, the growth trajectory of a projects (stars over time).
X: 1,500 likes, 50 comments, 846 shares.
Facebook: 58 likes, 8 comments, 22 shares.
Bluesky: 94 likes, 3 comments, 51 shares.