Facebook Is Clamping Down On Misleading Headlines

Facebook is tweaking its algorithm to take on clickbaits in the news feed and this is according to a post by the social media giant last week. Simply put, a clickbait is that deliberate attempt by some websites to display misleading headlines and when you click on them, you see something entirely different. This is primarily carried out by websites to increase traffic to their websites. If you have been online a lot, you may have come across such headlines and honestly speaking, I have.

Here’s an excerpt from Facebook on how they intend to carry this out;

We are focusing more effort on this, and are updating News Feed by using a system that identifies phrases that are commonly used in clickbait headlines. First, we categorized tens of thousands of headlines as clickbait by considering two key points: (1) if the headline withholds information required to understand what the content of the article is; and (2) if the headline exaggerates the article to create misleading expectations for the reader. For example, the headline “You’ll Never Believe Who Tripped and Fell on the Red Carpet…” withholds information required to understand the article (What happened? Who Tripped?) The headline “Apples Are Actually Bad For You?!” misleads the reader (apples are only bad for you if you eat too many every day). A team at Facebook reviewed thousands of headlines using these criteria, validating each other’s work to identify a large set of clickbait headlines.

Pages that don’t engage in such headlines have nothing to fear according to Facebook.

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