Facebook will begin demoting 'engagement bait' in your News Feed
Facebook wants publishers to stop begging for likes.
The social network is taking action against so-called "engagement bait," where publishers ask users to vote, like, or share a post in the hopes of bumping it to the top of people's News Feed.
The posts aren't banned exactly, but Facebook will now demote those posts in the News Feed. Facebook Pages that repeatedly use these tactics will potentially get all of their posts demoted, the company announced in a blog post on Monday.
The engagement-bait crackdown isn't happening immediately, in order to give publishers time to reconsider their strategies.
"We will roll out this Page-level demotion over the course of several weeks to give publishers time to adapt and avoid inadvertently using engagement bait in their posts," Facebook said in a blog post.
Facebook is also making some exceptions for posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations. These include "circulating a missing child report, raising money for a cause, or asking for travel tips," according to the company.
For Facebook, the update is a move to make the content users see in News Feed more "authentic." That's been Facebook's main rallying cry ever since the company admitted to circulating Russian propaganda during the 2016 presidential election.
In October, Facebook released a handbook for publishers that describes the company's principles for journalism. The guidelines, said Facebook's VP of News Feed Adam Mosseri, emphasize "meaningful content" over clickbait.
And yet, Facebook's secondary feed Explore is full of meaningless posts. It also recently introduced a page for "Top 10 goat posts on Facebook."
Topics Facebook Social Media Elections
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
