clickbait

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Website content that is aimed at generating advertising revenue, especially at the…

   Website content that is aimed at generating advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs; such headlines.

   • Fairfax's sites are renowned for what is sometimes called ‘clickbait’: headlines written to beguile passing eyeballs but which obscure nondescript or irrelevant stories.
   • "His careful lawyerly writing would be out of fashion now", wrote one commenter after Kettle's piece. "It wasn't clickbait".
   • In August 2016, leaders at Facebook announced a plan to identify and limit clickbait, because the Facebook newsfeed goal is to “show people the stories most relevant to them.”
2. 2

   To add clickbait to a web page

   To add clickbait to a web page; to direct clickbait at someone.

   • Whether they're acts of clickbaiting or dumbness, internet headlines routinely mischaracterize quotes, inaccurately paraphrase statements, and misuse specific terms, all to make readers click.
   • But he'd clickbaited her.
   • I have never clickbaited anyone with overexaggerated titles, but also never downplayed the severity of the content within.

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