Facebook Inc. share price, to crack down on “clickbaits” in its News Feed through two updates

Facebook Inc. shared in a press release on Monday that it will crack down on the “clickbaits” on its News Feed. As “clickbaits” the social network will deem articles shared by people to attract clicks but which contain little other information.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook Inc. said in its press release that it considers click bait “when a publisher posts a link with a headline that encourages people to click to see more, without telling them much information about what they will see.”

Facebook Inc. said its social network will receive two new updates. The company revealed that it intends to give priority to the best content uploaded by monitoring the time people spend reading news articles. Also, Facebook will take into account the number of “likes” or “shares” a post has received to decide whether it is valuable to users.

As reported by BBC News, the company also explained in its press release: “Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed.” According to the company, 80% of its users, who took part in a content survey, preferred “headlines that helped them decide if they wanted to read the full article before they had to click through”.

Facebook said that a “small set” of publishers could see their distribution decline following the change. However, the company finds the changes absolutely necessary so that “clickbaits” do not replace the content that people really want to see on the social network.

Facebook Inc. closed 0.60% higher on Monday at $75.02 per share, marking a one-year change of +81.47%. The company is valued at $195.06 billion. According to CNN Money, the 39 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Facebook Inc. have a median target of $87.00, with a high estimate of $100.00 and a low estimate of $72.00. The median estimate represents a +15.97% increase from the last price of $75.02.