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Facebook will soon purge video clickbait from the News Feed

Facebook will soon purge video clickbait from the News Feed

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Like ones that have a fake play button on videos of still images

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Facebook has announced two new updates that will limit video clickbait posts from appearing in the News Feed. The posts being targeted are those that have fake video play buttons embedded into an image, and videos of a static image.

Facebook’s algorithm actively promotes videos, especially longer ones. Spammers have exploited this to trick users into clicking links to low-quality websites and those with malicious ads. Users started noticing static images disguised as videos a little while ago where some pages were gaming Facebook's algorithm by just uploading static memes as 10-second videos.

“Publishers that rely on these intentionally deceptive practices should expect the distribution of those clickbait stories to markedly decrease,” Facebook engineers Baraa Hamodi, Zahir Bokhari, and Yun Zhang, wrote in a blog post. “Most Pages won’t see significant changes to their distribution in News Feed.”

The demotion of video clickbait posts will roll out over the next few weeks. In May, the company rolled out more tweaks to the News Feed to limit clickbait posts.

Facebook has been taking a more aggressive approach to moderating content on its platform since the US election, after the social networking site was criticized for not doing enough to combat fake news proliferating on its platform.

Today’s Storystream

Feed refreshed 35 minutes ago Better on the inside

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Twitter
Richard Lawler35 minutes ago
PC gamers showed up for a PlayStation hit.

NPD’s August update for videogame sales has arrived, noting that PS5 was number one in hardware sales for the month and that new-gen hardware sales are up significantly from last year due to improved supply for both the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S.

But the most astounding leap came from Marvel’s Spider-Man, which jumped from 84th on the chart the month before to number 3, thanks to Sony re-releasing the PlayStation exclusive on PC via Steam (and Steam Deck).


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Dan Seifert42 minutes ago
Apple’s CarPlay is still frustratingly basic.

Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels has blogged about the frustrations he’s had migrating to a new iPhone and not having his CarPlay preferences carry over, despite every other app on his phone copying over correctly.

I’m with him on that, but I’m more annoyed by the second point he highlights: CarPlay still treats every vehicle you connect to as a different thing. Instead of preserving your preferences when you plug in to a different car, it makes you set it all up again for each new vehicle. This is annoying for families with more than one car; it’s downright maddening for frequent users of rental cars. Seems like a simple thing to fix!


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Quote
Richard LawlerTwo hours ago
Adnan is out.

Yesterday, a Baltimore City Circuit judge overturned the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, setting him free — for the moment — after serving 23 years in a case documented by the podcast Serial. This morning, host Sarah Koenig released Serial’s first new episode in seven years.

It’s Baltimore, 2022. Adnan Syed has spent the last 23 years incarcerated, serving a life sentence for the murder of Hae Min Lee, a crime he says he didn’t commit. He has exhausted every legal avenue for relief, including a petition to the United States Supreme Court. But then, a prosecutor in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s office stumbled upon two handwritten notes in Adnan’s case file, and that changed everything.


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James Vincent11:48 AM UTC
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Thomas Ricker9:01 AM UTC
Pixel Watch to start at $349.99?

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Nilay Patel3:25 AM UTC
“Obviously Peacock sucks.”

Kim Masters has a good piece on Warner Brothers Discovery looking for a new DC studio chief, with rampant speculation that the endgame is Comcast buying the whole thing in 2024 to beef up Peacock.

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The Verge
Nathan Edwards2:30 AM UTC
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Mitchell Clark1:50 AM UTC
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Hearing them describe how they were treated, and how Tesla failed to defend them (and sometimes actively punished them) is difficult.


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Nilay Patel1:36 AM UTC
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Mitchell Clark1:20 AM UTC
It sounds like the DOJ isn’t happy with the Apple v. Epic ruling

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The DOJ is worried the decision as it stands could make future antitrust cases more difficult — which is especially important considering reports that it’s working on its own antitrust action against Apple.


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Adi RobertsonSep 19
I don’t think this AI-generated game actually counts as AI-generated.

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David PierceSep 19
This is an awesome guide to iOS 16 lock screen widgets.

I continue to think they’re the best thing about the new iOS, and the MacStories folks rounded up a huge number of widgets you can try now. They range from pointless and delightful to totally instantly essential — Link Hub, which just opens any link you want, is particularly great.