clickbait

Instagram founders’ news app Arifact launched a new set of features Monday, allowing users to report clickbait articles, react with emojis and share articles as images. The clickbait flag feature now lets you mark an article as misleading through the three-dot menu in the article view or through a long press in the feed view. The company says that it will use these reports as signals to “better prioritize helpful articles over misleading ones.” Until now, the app allowed users to report an…

In what appears to be the case of the first arrest for the use of the artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT, a man in China was arrested for writing fake news stories with the help of the AI platform. The man allegedly posted a fake news…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Ever clicked on a link because of a sensationalist headline or image? Or worse, shared it on social media without even reading it? If so, you've fallen victim to what's known as clickbait, and you're probably not alone. "Humans are the weak link in online safety," said Esma Aïmeur, a professor in…

Because Google knows that we all hate clickbait, the company will soon be taking steps to tackle this problem in Google search results. Starting globally next week for searches using English, Google will aim to reduce the ranking for offending websites while simultaneously rewarding those that create original, high-quality content. Clickbait is often seen in advertisements that make bold or even outrageous claims in the hopes that you’ll be intrigued enough to click the ad so you can learn more. Search results can…

Google is making a series of updates to Search that aim to tackle clickbait and improve the relevancy of search results, prioritizing original and authentic reviews over recycled information that passes around aggregator sites. The changes in the form of two updates are being rolled out in the weeks ahead, according to a blog post announcing the ranking updates. “We know people don’t find content helpful if it seems like it was designed to attract clicks rather than inform readers. So starting next week for English…

Blue thumbs-up icon. Credit: Jackson Sophat, Unsplash, CC0 (creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) A study of 4,000 Facebook posts by news organizations provides unique insights into clickbait and user engagement. The study, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Anna-Katharina Jung, of the University of Duisburg-Essen, and colleagues, suggests both headlines and the text used in the posts can 'bait' users into…