After getting feedback from users regarding its News Feed content, it has taken a decision to curb ‘misleading and spammy’ articles which frequently take the aid of click bait style headlines.
A Facebook blog put up regarding the issue said that people, who consume most of their news through its News Feed feature, have been rooting to see fewer stories with clickbait headlines or link titles.
Click baits articles generally leave out crucial snippets of information, mislead people, and force them to click on an article out of curiosity.
Himadri Ghosh, an independent journalist based out of Kolkata, pointed out that clickbait-style articles not only lure people but act as a catalyst promoting ‘yellow journalism’.
The 23-year-old said, “These kinds of articles are mostly misleading. More and more media house are subscribing to such techniques compromising media ethics just to get some more clicks. This kind of activity are demeaning the fundamental meaning of journalism,”
The Facebook blog said: “To address this feedback from our community, we’re making an update to News Feed ranking to further reduce clickbait headlines in the coming weeks.”
Another Bengaluru-based serial entrepreneur, tech-evangelist, and founder of Webfosys Group, Om Thoke pointed out that clikbait helps websites drive immediate traffic but end up suffering in the long run.
He said, “It's like showing the photo of a big 10 inches pizza and serve a 6" pan pizza to user in reality!”
With an acute rise in competition on the online domain, publications have started taking the aid of clickbaits too frequently. However, Facebook will strengthen its vigilance and will eliminate as many clickbait articles as possible.
It further pointed out that the update will list content that matters over the vast number of clickbait-style articles that flood social media.
Increased vigilance
Facebook also explained that it had earlier updated its News Feed that reduced distribution of posts that ‘forced’ people to click.
While it acknowledged that the previous update has helped reduce ‘misleading’ content, people are still complaining about ‘lousy clickbaits’.
However, with the new update in place, Facebook will be following some strict norms such as inspecting certain elements. Apart from checking if headlines hold information required for understanding content of an article, it will also curb articles which use exaggerated headlines.
“A team at Facebook reviewed thousands of headlines using these criteria, validating each other’s work to identify a large set of clickbait headlines,” the blog said.
A new system
Facebook has designed a system that looks at a set of clickbait headlines to determine what phrases have been used commonly and then takes necessary steps.
Facebook said: “Links posted from or shared from Pages or domains that consistently post clickbait headlines will appear lower in News Feed.”
However, if a publication’s page, previously using clickbait headlines, changes course, their post will stop being impacted by this change.
