Even if you have not heard the word "clickbait," you have definitely seen it.Vague titles that offer what seems enticing tidbits of news or trivia, oftentimes accompanied by a titillating picture. While in reality, the actual answer to the title's headline is either obvious or mundanely uninteresting or irrelevant. It's a low-effort way for sites to get more clicks and thereby more revenue.
After years of dealing with this clogging of your newsfeed, you may find it annoying. If so, you're in luck. Facebook recently announced that it would allows users to have an option to filter out Clickbait. A lot of users have been clamoring for such a feature or some way to de-incentivize the presence of clickbait. This isn't only a crowd-pleasing choice by the company, but it also is a smart choice for a company always trying to improve and legitimize its image.
Recently, Facebook has started to try to evolve past the simple life-sharing site it gained a reputation of, and incorporating itself into a one-stop shop for all the information needs of its users, whether it comes from the headlines of the world or your cousin's wedding. This, of course, is hindered by the presence of annoying little low-effort articles that block out legitimate stories that matter. Stories like this fine article asking if Bruno Mars is gay. (The answer is no). Or perhaps this one leading with the premise that the Bushes offer their endorsement for the 2016 presidential election, but takes two pages to finally get to the point that they don't endorse anyone. Or this one enticing of what Prince George is called in preschool. It's George. As you can see, these do nothing but tell the reader something in excessive paragraphs that they could have in one sentence. It's not a good look for a prospective "news" site.
While clickbait won't disappear forever simply because of this decision, it may be the start of a trend in other social media sites. These parasitic articles definitely won't have as much of a presence on your newsfeed as they used to, and they may even be made less and less. All in all, this was a great PR and image move by Facebook that will make ripples in the tech world.
