Facebook has been under a lot of surveillance because of spreading misinformation. Previously a conspiracy that American elections were high jacked, turned into worst nightmare for Facebook when privacy scandal saw the light of the day. It is now a proven fact that Facebook has been involved in collecting information about the users and selling it to others. According to FullFact, Facebook is letting the advertisers edit the headlines of already published articles.
The process of posting an article is easy, to make it even easier the user is required to only add the link and it will fetch preview to reveal the feature image and the main title headline. However, with the help of this feature, advertisers can completely change the headline by editing it. So, there is a high chance that next time you see an article on Facebook, the headline has been edited to be more sensational so it can bring more clicks. Moreover, there is also a chance that article will not have any connection with the headline, making it completely disconnected and useless for the reader.
This might feel beneficial when it is observed from the advertiser point of view but from the point of view of the reader, this is quite challenging. Users might end up reading something that is completely false just because they opened a wrong headline or they can easily be misinformed for anything. The clickbait and sensational news are already considered a big curse for Facebook but it seems that Facebook has not learned its lesson from the past existence.
Now with the help of the new feature, it will be easier for the advertiser to make the news sensation but lose the essence of truth in the news. According to an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University, Jennifer Grygiel it seems that Facebook is getting money just to let the manufacturers manipulate the information for their own benefit. This means that the company has been passively contributing to the spread of fake news and then providing the ability to flag the shady and fake news for the users. The main issue is that it has been long the tactic of Facebook to come up with a problem that helps them earn money, only to come up with a solution that is not good enough.
Photo: Bombuscreative / Getty Images
Read next: Facebook is Reportedly Testing Chat Posts for Sharing Messenger Group Chats in Posts!
The process of posting an article is easy, to make it even easier the user is required to only add the link and it will fetch preview to reveal the feature image and the main title headline. However, with the help of this feature, advertisers can completely change the headline by editing it. So, there is a high chance that next time you see an article on Facebook, the headline has been edited to be more sensational so it can bring more clicks. Moreover, there is also a chance that article will not have any connection with the headline, making it completely disconnected and useless for the reader.
This might feel beneficial when it is observed from the advertiser point of view but from the point of view of the reader, this is quite challenging. Users might end up reading something that is completely false just because they opened a wrong headline or they can easily be misinformed for anything. The clickbait and sensational news are already considered a big curse for Facebook but it seems that Facebook has not learned its lesson from the past existence.
Now with the help of the new feature, it will be easier for the advertiser to make the news sensation but lose the essence of truth in the news. According to an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University, Jennifer Grygiel it seems that Facebook is getting money just to let the manufacturers manipulate the information for their own benefit. This means that the company has been passively contributing to the spread of fake news and then providing the ability to flag the shady and fake news for the users. The main issue is that it has been long the tactic of Facebook to come up with a problem that helps them earn money, only to come up with a solution that is not good enough.
Photo: Bombuscreative / Getty Images
Read next: Facebook is Reportedly Testing Chat Posts for Sharing Messenger Group Chats in Posts!
