Facebook to curb the spread of ‘engagement bait’ content

Social media has quickly become one of the primary methods for businesses to reach out to their audience. In the midst of this chaos, many posts and pages make use of spam tactics to enhance their visibility on the platform. This exercise takes place on many apps like Facebook. This type of content is referred to as “engagement bait.” However, it doesn’t seem like this Mark Zuckerberg-led initiative has an accepting attitude towards this exercise. A company spokesperson said that users would soon only discover “meaningful” content on their News Feed.

According to a report by Sci-Tech Today, “engagement bait” kind of content usually asks Facebook users to like, share and comment on posts with the sole purpose of gaining higher visibility on the social media platform. The Facebook spokesperson said that their developers have now created a new machine learning model that can identify content that is “meaningful” and display it on the user’s News Feed. The company also recently updated its platform with a new ‘Snooze’ option. Users can now temporarily unfollow people, pages, and groups without unfriending them. As per the announcement made by Facebook, the latest model along with the Snooze feature is scheduled to arrive sometime next week.

Facebook has been a subject of scrutiny for the longest time possible. The social media platform is under steady pressure to fine-tune the kind of content that appears on their website. The demand has increased notably in the wake of recent Russia-sponsored campaigns revelations (ahead of the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections). The company has also been addressing problems relating to mental health that are linked to social media. Facebook specialist Henry Silverman and engineer Lin Huang wrote in a blog post earlier today that Facebook will impose downgrades on pages that “systematically and repeatedly use engagement bait to gain reach in News Feed artificially.”