Clickbait: Why it Must be Stopped
Dear Senator Warner,
I am writing today to inform you of a horrible new trend sweeping the Internet. Though we agree that Internet usage should be cost-free once people have access to the World Wide Web, there are still ways to get around free websites: by allowing the commercial businesses to place ads and attention-getting notices throughout the Internet. One of the biggest ways this is happening is the new phenomenon of Clickbait. Clickbait is problematic because it is so hard to determine what is clickbait and what is not. Oftentimes you do not realize something was clickbait until you are far into the article or website.
The largest area in social media that causes alarm today is clickbait. Dictionary.com defines clickbait as, “a sensationalized headline of piece of text on the Internet, designed to entice people to follow a link to an article on another web page” (Dictionary). The problem with clickbait is that it is tricking the reader. “It’s rarely newsworthy, but it does attract eyeballs. The assumption seems to be that audiences might stay for the “serious” content after gorging on the fluff” (Dvorkin).
Clickbait is dishonest, and some would even argue that it is illegal. It is illegal because it lures the readers into sites and areas that they do not know they are getting into. They are stuck there and sometimes don’t even realize that by clicking on the article and later clicking on ads inside the article, they have gone to a whole new place. It is one thing to run ads down the side of the website, the way Facebook and Craigslist do. Even free companies allow advertisers to place their commercials on the side of their email site. But customers know for a fact that they are clicking on the ad when they do so. Clickbait does not want readers to do that.
Who uses Clickbait? According to Inc.com in a recent study conducted by the Universities of Mississippi and Oklahoma, “In short, they say that both “mainstream media” and “unreliable media” often use clickbait–and that it grew in prevalence between 2014 and 2016. Specifically, 19.46 percent of headlines were “clickbait” under their definition in 2014; 23.73 percent in 2015; and 25.27 percent in 2016” (Researchers). Twenty-five percent is one fourth of all headlines in 2016. That’s a lot of fake news, or at least exaggerated news!
This example from CNN shows you that sometimes we read clickbait without knowing it. CNN posted an article titled, “Intel Analysis Shows Putin Approved Election Hacking”(M). The article title uses the word “hacking” even though there is no proof of this provided anywhere in the article. CNN posted this article knowing that the title would entice people to click on it, and once the reader got to this article they realized the title was misleading. The problem is, if websites can make clickbait titles that seem this real, none of us stand a chance of determining what is real and what is not.
If websites and companies are allowed to post misleading titles and links that take you to ads you were unaware of, how will we continue to navigate the internet? These two things make searching online more difficult because it requires the reader to weed out the fake titles and ads. And in the end, will it help the publishers of the fake news? According to the Inc.com article, “Long term, media that don’t deliver, ultimately won’t be trusted. (Although unfortunately, they often drag others down with them, too)” (Researchers). Sometimes the article lures the reader in with a shocking headline. Other times the reader is reading a traditional style article and inadvertently clicks on an advertisement in the middle of the article. This immediately leads them to a new link and they can be distracted or confused without realizing the site has changed.
According to Change Advertising.org, in a recent study conducted by their company, of the top fifty news sites, eighty-two percent use content ads (Clickbait). These ads are also known as Clickbait. Among these content ads were Clickbait, blog content, fake news, advertisers, broken links and finally, some real news. The readers have to sort through all of these areas in order to find the real news. Change Advertising also suggests that perhaps the closer relationship between the advertisers and the articles indicates that the advertisers sponsor more or less all of the content.
Forbes Magazine reports that there are several reasons consumers choose to click onto Clickbait: curiosity, emotion, exclusivity and challenge (DeMers). Curiosity and emotion are obvious reasons people choose to read articles that have catchy or remarkable headlines. Exclusivity refers to the extreme claims such as “only one in one hundred people” will do a certain thing or react a certain way. Challenge refers to comments such as “you’ll never guess what happens next”. Readers want to know what will happen next and want to read on. Forbes goes on to name the strategies that the Clickbait writers use to lure readers in. These include the following phrases: will make you, this is why, can we guess. These phrases also entice readers to click due to their natural curiosity and human emotion.
The solution to the problem of clickbait is to require Congress to pass a law requiring all journalism to consist of genuine stories. The benefits that will result are that journalists will be forced to do authentic research, verifying sources and then readers will know that what they’re reading is accurate. The way to implement this solution is for an ordinary citizen to suggest it to his/her congressman. The congressman would need to discuss this problem with others in his office in order to raise awareness. People whose lives have been impacted by this fake news could be called upon to testify before Congress about their personal stories. Also, a fine or sanctions could be imposed upon news companies who continue to use fake news through clickbait after the law is passed. Already Google has begun to tighten their requirements on their advertisers in order to validate the truthfulness of claims (DeMers).
The way this solution should be implemented is that first a law be passed. Secondly, the government would create a program to monitor news websites and institute a program a fines and punishments, should the websites not comply. Thirdly consumers would be given the job to act as watchdogs to report any misuse of the sites. Forbes goes on to state that Facebook has gone a step further to update its newsfeed algorithm to reduce the number of Clickbait articles (DeMers). Change Advertising suggests that we could also create more advertising disclosures and improve the quality of the websites (Clickbait).
The opposition of this law would include the publishers of the clickbait websites as well as the advertisers on these sites. From personal experience I have accidently clicked the advertisers on the clickbait, not realizing I was doing so, and I imagine that happens to a lot of internet users too. Whether or not they purchase anything is not the point. It’s simply that they’ve clicked on the link and have accessed the content accordingly. Advertisers count the number of visitors to the sites and rate their effectiveness by the visitor count. These advertisers would oppose the implementations of limits due to the fact that it would limit or eliminate revenue they could obtain from these sites. However, if they would place their ads in spots where their consumers choose to click on them, their revenue would be higher anyway.
If you were to pass a law, making clickbait illegal, it would help millions of American consumers be able to access trustworthy, honest news stories, written by qualified journalists. It would hold writers up to a higher standard. It would make obtaining daily news from the Internet a safe activity. Perhaps writers could learn from the enticement of Clickbait and determine how to write eye-catching headlines that tell true stories. Writers know what works for readers and should apply it to the articles that they write honestly. I know that not all commercial enterprises will agree with this proposal. But I also know that the decisions that you make are for the best of the American people, therefore you will do the right thing.
Sincerely, Morgan Bentham-Schwier
