Facebook will aggressively remove 'sensationalist' posts

On August 4, social network Facebook announced changes to the management rules of News Feed, which could lead to huge changes in news consumption.

What's the goal of this change? "Clickbait" headlines, a type of headline designed to pique curiosity and draw readers in rather than convey information.

Facebook said readers had expressed frustration with headlines that “intentionally omit important information” to entice users to click on links, so the social network would eliminate these types of “clickbait” headlines.

In a statement, Facebook said it had heard from users that they specifically wanted to see fewer “clickbait” headlines or headline links. These are headlines that intentionally omit important information, forcing viewers to click to find out the answer. For example, headlines like “When she looked under her pillow and saw this… I was shocked!” or “He put a garlic clove in his shoe before bed and what happened next was unbelievable.”

In response to user feedback, Facebook is rolling out a new update to its News Feed to rank and limit "clickbait" headlines in the coming weeks.

With this update, people will see fewer "clickbait" posts and more posts they want to see in their news feed.

Also in the announcement, Facebook outlined two precise criteria for identifying "clickbait" headlines, which are headlines that conceal information or exaggerate to create false expectations about information.

Facebook has classified tens of thousands of headlines as “clickbait” and is building a system to flag these headlines in the future.

With the adoption of the above headline classification system, publishers relying on "clickbait" need to be careful as the system will identify repeated violations and will highlight the offending content in users' News Feeds.

However, Facebook also said that if Pages stop posting posts with "clickbait" headlines, they won't be affected by the changes.

This isn't the first time Facebook has clamped down on "clickbait." In 2013, Facebook made changes to its algorithm to remove irrelevant posts in favor of higher-quality content.

Facebook's latest announcement is also a reminder for news organizations to build their audience strategy around any social network, one that can adapt to the sudden changes of a particular social network platform.

In Facebook's most recent News Feed overhaul, posts from friends and family members are given priority over posts from publishers, some of which rely on social media for a large amount of traffic./.

According to Vietnamplus