Facebook working on ending 'engagement bait' to reduce spamming

Amid extensive spamming that has been reported by users, Facebook announced that it is monitoring the situation and will demote posts that beg for likes, comments, and shares.

Very often while browsing through our News Feed, we come across posts that say 'Tag a friend who likes to sleep', or 'Tag a friend who's best suited for this boy/girl', or 'Like if you enjoy eating Pizza'. Taking cognizance of this, Facebook will begin demoting spammy or "engagement bait" posts that force users into sharing, tagging, liking, or commenting.

The aforementioned posts game Facebook's algorithms, which causes the platform to prioritize those posts in more News Feeds, and hence garnered popularity.

The company, however, clarified that posts asking people for help, advice, or recommendations like raising money for charity won't be affected by the update, reports The Verge.

Facebook has reviewed and categorised thousands of posts and taught a machine learning model to detect the different types of engagement bait. The company assured it will implement stricter demotions for Pages that repeatedly bait engagement in a few weeks to give publishers time to adapt.

"Moving forward, we will continue to find ways to improve and scale our efforts to reduce engagement bait. We want to reduce the spread of content that is spammy, sensational, or misleading in order to promote more meaningful and authentic conversations on Facebook," the company said.

Facebook further clarified that Pages which repeatedly post engagement bait will see more "significant drops" in reach.