Facebook is making more updates to reduce the amount of “clickbait” appearing on users’ feeds.
Last year, Facebook made an update to the News Feed to reduce the amount of stories that come up from sources that consistently post clickbait-like headlines.
Facebook defines clickbait as stories or pieces with headlines that either withhold or exaggerate information, such as “You WON’T Believe What These Celebs Did In College,” or “The ONE Weight Loss Tip That Will Have You Feeling Skinny In NO TIME!”
Now, Facebook is introducing three more updates to further combat clickbait:
- Facebook will now take into account clickbait posts at the individual post level, expanding on their efforts to look at domain and Page level posts.
- Facebook will attempt to identify whether the clickbait headline exaggerates information or withholds it. They will also identify certain phrases that are routinely used in clickbait headlines and not other headlines, further helping to identify clickbait headlines. This function is similar to how many email spam filters work.
- Facebook will test these efforts in other languages besides English.
Why is Facebook doing this? Simply put, they want more authentic content and communication appearing on users’ News Feeds. These efforts, in addition to Facebook’s effort to combat fake news articles (and see fewer posts and ads in the News Feed that lead to low-quality web pages), are a part of Facebook’s push to make the News Feed more authentic and accurate for users.
How might this affect Back At You users? If anything, these changes will give an advantage to our users because we only post content from the most reputable of websites and never to use clickbait methods in our content. Our users could also potentially see wider reach and more engagement on posts, reaching users who might have previously would have seen some kind of clickbait article.