DON’T ASK FOR LIKES ON FACEBOOK (OR SHARES OR TAGS OR VOTES…)

Facebook has started to demote spammy posts that goad users into taking actions like sharing, tagging, liking, or commenting.

Posts which prompt users to “Tag a friend who likes pizza!” – known as “engagement bait” seem popular because they game Facebook’s algorithms, which causes Facebook to prioritise those posts in more News Feeds.

The company says posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations like raising money for charity or asking for travel advice won’t be affected by the update.

Facebook reviewed and categorised hundreds of thousands of posts to inform a machine learning model to detect the different types of engagement bait.

The company says it will implement stricter demotions for Pages that repeatedly bait engagement in a few weeks to give publishers time to adapt.

“Moving forward, we will continue to find ways to improve and scale our efforts to reduce engagement bait,” Facebook said. “We want to reduce the spread of content that is spammy, sensational, or misleading in order to promote more meaningful and authentic conversations on Facebook.”

Facebook says Pages that repeatedly post engagement bait will see more “significant drops” in reach.