Saturday, December 9, 2017

Lying clickbait: Sloppy mistakes or deliberate errors?

Sometimes with erroneous clickbait I wonder if the people who created it are just being sloppy and grabbing the wrong photo or are being intentionally misleading. I tend to think it’s the latter.
Creators of clickbait like to exploit the curiosity gap by using a photo that doesn’t match the headline or article. It’s a way to trick people to click on an article.
What follows are some recent examples.

A Taboola sponsored article titled “Guy on Twitter just noticed this in the movie Forrest Gump and now everyone can’t unsee it!” used a photo of actress Jennifer Grey from “Dirty Dancing” (1987).



Another Taboola article titled “GOT actors who look way different in real life” used a photo of actress Evangeline Lilly. Lilly was never in “Game of Thrones,” known as GOT to fans.



An Outbrain sponsored article titled “Unforgettable sports moments caught on camera” inexplicably used a photo of Instagram model and aspiring singer Claire Abbott.
Last March, I noted that Abbott’s pictures were used to promote a clickbait article titled “Photos from jaw-dropping actresses from the past!
Abbott is neither an athlete nor an actress, but she is a popular subject of clickbait articles. A recent Taboola article titled “Meet the girl who broke the internet with one photo” used a picture of Abbott.





Finally, a clickbait post on Yahoo titled “Wondered why Anna Kournikova never got married?” used three photos: two of Kournikova and one of Maria Sharapova. Both are attractive Russian tennis players, but Sharapova was much better at the sport.



 Anna Kournikova

Maria Sharapova

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