As the name implies, clickbait is a form of false advertisement online. It usually comes as a link to a website with a sensationalist headline, and it has become the laughing stock of the internet.
“You won’t believe what this celebrity said.” “Ignoring that symptom will cost you your life.” You’ve seen it, you hate it, you get the idea.
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Luckily, there’s a fun little project that tries to put an end to this dirty practice by showing just how redundant and cringey it actually is — Stop Clickbait opens up these publications and reduces them to a single line. It then shares the phrase together with the original title next to it, and the stark contrast proves that we do, in fact, need to stop clickbait.
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Image credits: Stop Clickbait
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Stop Clickbait started in May of 2016. “I am an advertising major so over the years I’ve become very cynical when it comes to advertising,” the project’s creator Daniel told Bored Panda about its origins.
“I am quite fascinated by the spread of online ads and started to think it would be not only hilarious but also useful to many to go against the economy of the internet; ad revenue. Within a few days, it blew up with viral posts across social media channels and since then there have been vast amounts of support coming from all over the world. Since then, we have expanded into 10 different pages to specialize in different categories of clickbait as well as in 12 different countries around the world.”
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At its peak, Stop Clickbait has had a team of over 100 volunteers from around the world. There were people that specialized in things like graphic design, communications, and even computer programming.
Daniel said everyone who has been involved in the project was really passionate about fighting for the cause, and finding volunteers has generally been quite easy.
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Image credits: Stop Clickbait
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Daniel and his team believe that at least a couple of things should happen for clickbait to disappear. “First, social media companies need to provide tools to content producers to incentivize them to keep their content on their social media page,” he said.
“One way they can do this is to provide options to generate revenue by posting [directly] on social media like Facebook or Twitter.” In other words, content providers shouldn’t have to redirect their social media followers elsewhere.
“Another thing we fight for is to promote media literacy,” Daniel added. “By being able to read a headline and tell the difference between a journalist with integrity or simply someone using sensationalism to generate a click, the user can make an educated decision on who to support.”
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The team thanks everyone around the world that has been using the hashtag #StopClickBait by themselves to spoil clickbait they find online.
“We’ve heard from hundreds of people that they’ve gotten banned from Facebook pages because they keep spoiling their clickbait in the comments. Awesome. We are the little people joining together to fight against the media giants, and we’re having an impact. It’s time to fight against the economy of the Internet; it’s all in the name, it’s time to stop clickbait.”
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Source: boredpanda.com