In a move that could significantly impact the clickbaity listicle sites, Facebook is rolling out significant updates to the News Feed to reduce click-baiting headlines and prioritize showing links posted in the link format over those shared in captions or status updates. These changes come four months after Facebook rolled out a series of updates to the News Feed to reduce like-baiting posts, spammy links and repeated content wherein photos or videos are repeatedly uploaded to Facebook by page owners. Reducing Click-bait headlines Facebook mentions that it is doubling down on reducing click-bait headlines since these encourage users to click on a link without telling them enough about what to expect. Since these posts get a lot of clicks, it gets shown to more people and gets shown higher up in News Feed. Facebook notes these stories over time can potentially "drown out content from friends and pages that people really care about". While I am not really an active Facebook user per se, but there have been instances where my News Feed is completely filled up with these click-bait headlines rather than posts and status updates from my friends and family. Wired's Mat Honan also conducted an experiment recently wherein he liked everything in his feed for two days, which resulted in his news feed being covered with publishers and brand messages instead of personal posts from his friends. Determining click-bait: What's interesting and significant here is the approach Facebook is taking to distinguish these headlines from other posts. The company says it…
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