Facebook cracks down on 'engagement baiting'
In December, Facebook began phasing in demotions for pages and posts that use engagement baiting to solicit interactions. Specifically, they want to discourage certain types of posts that use these five kinds of engagement baiting;
- Vote Baiting – getting users to engage by way of reactions, comments, or sharing as votes.
- React Baiting – soliciting reactions to a post inviting a person to express their feelings about something.
- Share Baiting – posting an encouragement or incentive for friends to share with other friends for a chance to receive or win something of perceived value.
- Tag Baiting – soliciting FB users to tag their friends in relation to a post.
- Comment Baiting – soliciting responses that specify a particular phrase, word, numbers or emoji. For example; comment “Yes” if you enjoy sunsets on the beach.
Here are three examples of the types of engagement spam Facebook is looking to systematically demote.
Facebook is training their algorithm to detect the different versions of engagement bait. They say the demotions will be automated and completely controlled by the algorithm. You should expect the demotion process to become increasingly aggressive as their AI becomes smarter and the dataset more complete.
Worth noting, however: Posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations, such as circulating a missing child report, raising money for a cause, or asking for travel tips, will NOT be adversely impacted by this update, according to Facebook.
You should also review Facebook's News Feed Publisher Guidelines, by going
