Facebook Implements More Updates in Attempt to Further Reduce Clickbait Headlines

Facebook is making more updates aimed at further reducing stories from sources that post click-bait headlines, wrote company engineers Arun Babu, Annie Liu and Jordan Zhang in a Wednesday blog post. They said Facebook is taking into account click-bait at the individual post level and at the domain and page levels, seeing whether headlines withhold information or exaggerate it, and testing the updates in different languages. The updates build on work begun last year. "Headlines that withhold information intentionally leave out crucial details or mislead people, forcing them to click to find out the answer,'" the three wrote. There are headlines with sensational language that exaggerate details, they added, such as: “WOW! Ginger tea is the secret to everlasting youth. You’ve GOT to see this!” The engineers said most users won't see any significant changes in their news feeds and publishers that use click-bait headlines should expect distribution to decrease.