Posted by, Kyle Coulter

In an effort to make the social media experience more enjoyable for the users; Facebook has changed its algorithm to stop publishers from posting enticing and brash headlines that do not match the quality, or lack thereof, of the post itself. Facebook will be doing this by checking the amount of time the user spends away from Facebook while reading the article, and also by how many shares and likes the post receives. Facebook fears that these deceitful headlines will bog down news feeds and cause a mass exodus of exasperated users. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-baiting/

This form of social media trickery is known as “click-bait,” and it is used by  websites such as Upworthy, Buzzfeed, and all of the top notch journalists over at TMZ (tongue in cheek).  http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/business/2014/08/25/qmb-stelter-facebook-clickbait-crackdown.cnn.html

The Columbia Journalism Review took exception to this kind of false and sensationalist headline writing; however, they understand that in order for these kinds of websites to remain operational, they have to generate clicks, and enhance their SEO. http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/headlines_clickbait.php?utm_content=buffer1c1f4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer