Facebook wants to make life difficult for click catchers
Facebook wants to remove articles from users' news feeds that are solely aimed at generating clicks and offer little added value. The Facebook algorithm is designed to give less prominence to websites that use their posts to deliberately entice users to click.
They often write the entries in an overly emotional way or suggest more than the linked text actually delivers. Until now, this gave them an advantage. Because links that are clicked on often were placed higher up in the news stream of Facebook users. At the same time, several websites have developed writing Facebook-friendly texts into a regular formula.
"Over time, click catchers like this can crowd out content from friends and businesses that really matter to you," Facebook admits. That is now to change, the company announced on Tuesday night. From now on, the online network wants to take into account how long users read the articles they click on. In addition, the rating will take into account whether they comment on a text after reading it. The tweaking of the algorithm is intended to ensure that "things that people really want to see on Facebook" are not lost, it said. (SDA)
