Facebook takes action against ‘click-baiting’
Facebook has made changes to the timeline that should make so-called ‘click-baiting’ more difficult. With this, the American company is taking a harder line against posts that only have the purpose of driving traffic to a site.
The changes come after users complained that they were bothered by the “stimulating” headlines in statuses. Because of the attractive descriptions, many clicked on a link with a message, while the linked websites may not have been interesting enough. Yet such messages appeared higher in the timeline due to the number of clicks, because the algorithm thought it was a popular message.
Facebook announced on Monday that it will now keep track of how long it takes for someone to return to the network site after visiting a link. As soon as many users quickly return after clicking on a link and visiting a site, it is now a less interesting post, according to Facebook. With this, the American company wants to make click-baiting less interesting; news organizations, among others, use this to attract extra traffic to their sites.
According to Facebook, this method is effective. It concluded from its own research that approximately eighty percent of users decide to click on a link based on the descriptions. Furthermore, the algorithm now also pays attention to how often statuses are shared and discussed by the users who see them. “If many click the link, but relatively few people click the like button or comment on the story once they return to Facebook, it may mean they went to a website that wasn’t valuable enough for them.”
Finally, in the new iteration, which has now been rolled out, Facebook is adjusting the display of links. Some users post a photo and a shortened link, but according to Facebook this is not user-friendly. Instead, it will more actively encourage pasting a link directly into a status, causing a brief description of the website to appear. This would allow users to better decide whether they want to go to the linked site.
An example of click baiting on Facebook