Facebook has announced that starting this week, they will be demoting posts by individuals or by Pages that use “engagement bait”– a tactic that goads users into interacting with likes, comments, shares, and other actions to increase their reach.
The people behind Facebook has categorized thousands of posts in order to inform a machine learning model how to detect different types of engagement bait. Posts that use any form of engagement bait will be shown less in the News Feed of individual users in order to combat spammy content.
The objective behind the new algorithm is to create better News Feeds in terms of one of the company’s main values– authenticity. They want to create a feed that would feature original, relevant content tailored to each user. And who doesn’t want that, right?
Similar posts that will not be negatively affected by this new update include posts that ask for help, advice, or recommendations. This means that posts that ask users to help circulate a missing person report or raise money for a cause will not be demoted on the platform.
