Facebook Eyes Clickbait-Free News Feed

Facebook says it’s enjoyed some success with measures it has taken in the past, but it’s finding that there are still many pages that are relying on clickbait titles to pull readers in, which means the previous changes Facebook made to its News Feed algorithm didn’t fully work. Links posted from or shared from Pages or domains that consistently post clickbait headlines will appear lower in News Feed.

Two years ago, the social network said it was cracking down on clickbait, something it describes as “headlines that intentionally leave out crucial information, or mislead people, forcing people to click to find out the answer”. Clickbait headlines typically withhold information required to understand what the content of the article is or exaggerate the article to create misleading expectations, according to Facebook.

Chances are, you see headlines like these on Facebook on a regular basis. This was to see the actual quality of the article, however Facebook believes that this new method they’re rolling out is much more effective. Data shows that 60% of USA adults use social media to get their news, and Facebook is the biggest social media platform.

Facebook is even open to sharing its insights about how to fight clickbait with other social networks or tech products.

On Thursday Facebook announced the latest salvo in its roughly two-year-old war against clickbait posts. If those publishers surrender and stop posting clickbait headlines, then Facebook will grant them amnesty by no longer penalizing their news feed ranking.

With the new algorithm, informative headlines will be ranked higher than potential clickbait. Buzzfeed saw a 5.95 percent decrease in Facebook visits from the prior quarter, and SimilarWeb has noted that if Facebook continues to tweak its algorithm, publishers can expect to see further declines. Additionally, it’ll root out exaggerated or misleading headlines. It isn’t exactly a secret that Facebook has a clickbait problem, and a big one at that.

News publishers are naturally nervous about any News Feed change.

Two years later, this remains true, Facebook said. This is similar to how many email spam filters work.