Gary Johnson Facebook traffic soars after 'What is Aleppo?' gaffe

We may have found the bright side for Gary Johnson: His stunning foreign policy blunder last week made him a Facebook sensation, according to USA TODAY's Facebook Barometer.

Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate, shocked everyone when he was asked on MSNBC on Thursday what he would do about Aleppo.

"What is Aleppo?" he asked.

Aleppo is the Syrian city bearing the brunt of the nation's endless civil war, where residents face repeated bombings and an apparent chlorine gas attack.

Johnson later apologized, saying he had proved his humanity by blanking on a topic he actually knows something about.

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It's not just Gary Johnson: Plenty of politicians 'blank'

Facebook users generated 8.1 million likes, comments, shares and posts about Johnson in the week ending Sept. 11, more than double the 4 million interactions a week he had been averaging for the past month.

The only week this year in which Johnson has generated more Facebook traffic was the end of July, when he was a fixture on TV talking about his candidacy as an alternative to the two major parties that were staging their conventions.

By comparison, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump generated more than 75 million Facebook interactions last week. Green Party candidate Jill Stein generated 1.8 million interactions.

This seems to disprove the axiom that all press is good press. While it is true everybody was talking about Johnson, it is a good bet that not all of that chatter was praise.

2016 USA TODAY/Facebook candidate barometer