Engagement that includes likes, shares, and comments, is something that every web wants.
But baiting for engagement is certainly displeasing for visitors. The same goes for Facebook that is working to get rid of posts that ask for users' interactions.
To do this, the social giant is using machine learning.
The teams at the company have categorized "hundreds of thousands of posts" to teach its AI model to understand the different types of engagement baits. With this strategy, Facebook said that posts that use the baiting tactic will be shown less in users' News Feed.
As these rules are rolling out gradually, users are expected to keep this in mind as they create new posts.
And not just for post. Facebook also plans to put stricter demotions for Facebook Pages that repeatedly use engagement baits.
"Publishers and other businesses that use engagement bait tactics in their posts should expect their reach on these posts to decrease," said Facebook.
However, Facebook said that it doesn't view all posts that ask for interaction as engagement bait.
For example, posts that show a missing child report or ask for donations to a cause won't be trigger the machine learning and won't be demoted. Facebook considers those interactions as "authentic engagement" and claims its machine-learning model is smart enough to skip them.
Facebook's News Feeds can get pretty cluttered, especially with clickbait posts fishing for engagements. This is when the social media started showing less clickbait headlines and links to low-quality websites.
In November 2016, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said that his company would work to combat the spread of misinformation, which has peaked during during the U.S. presidential election.
Read: Russia Influenced U.S. Election With $100,000 Worth Of Ads, According To Facebook
"The bottom line is: We take misinformation seriously," said Zuckerberg at that time. "Our goal is to connect people with the stories they find most meaningful, and we know people want accurate information. We've been working on this problem for a long time and we take this responsibility seriously. We've made significant progress, but there is more work to be done."
However, Facebook doesn't share any metrics surrounding spam contents or what posts are regarded as engagement bait. What this means, it would be difficult for users to know how effective this program is in the long run.
The removal of such posts, also comes when Facebook is criticized heavily of having impact on a person's health and well being.