Facebook has announced on Thursday, August 4, that it has developed a new spam filter software that aims to help the social media network in its crusade against clickbait articles.
The social network explained on a blog post that, by analyzing text, the filter is able to block clickbait headlines. Facebook will incorporate the new spam filter software into its news feed ranking system. The anti-clickbait algorithm will downgrade those posts whose headlines appear to be misleading or manipulative.
Facebook will punish the websites, publications and pages that routinely engage in clickbait tactics. Those web domains and web pages that have more clickbait headlines will appear less in Facebook users' news feeds.
The New York Times reports that Facebook's news feed algorithm intents to discourage those publications, websites and pages that "withhold or distort information." Facebook's vice president for product management for the news feed, Adam Mosseri, declared in an interview that the company encourages publishers to post content that the social media network's users care about. Mosseri added that, in his opinion, Facebook's users care about much more straightforward headlines.
According to Slate, this is a battle that Facebook has already been engaged in for years. However, until now the efforts of the company so far have only had partial success. If implemented carefully, the new approach could be a valuable tool against spam and clickbait.
The new spam filter algorithm illustrates some of the challenges Facebook faces in its role of filtering what the users of its social media network read on the internet. Doing so seems to point to the company trying to make a subjective value judgment an automatic process, which can be a risky endeavor.
In the past, Facebook has relied on users' behavior in its efforts to identify clickbait. The social media network has announced in 2014 that its news feed software will start limiting the reach of certain links that many users clicked on but then spent little time on them. Facebook took this as a sign that the content was disappointing and the headline was misleading.
