Dear Computer Lady:
Thank you for all your help over the years. This is not a computer question per se. Why do so many sites, including Yahoo and Facebook have completely false information on the side of the site? For example, there are reports of deaths of celebrities, including movie stars and sports figures, that show up for several days on the side of the site. And there are reports that are completely untrue, that someone in the sports world has been suspended for life. The suspension never occurred. These are blatant examples of fake news. I have reported this to Facebook but never received a response. Thank you.
Robert in CA.
Dear Robert,
You are talking about advertisements called, clickbait.
Clickbait is purposely provocative and/or misleading in an effort to get users to click on it. Once the user has clicked on the clickbait, they are disappointed to find that the story is not really what it seemed, or all they see is a page full of ads with no story.
Clickbait often generates income based on the number of clicks or the number of page views generated from the clicks.
In addition, Facebook and other companies that are displaying the ads also make money when you click on them.
If you and I don’t click on the clickbait links, no one will make money with them, and eventually they will stop displaying them.
Elizabeth
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Elizabeth Boston is a Web designer, Social Media Consultant and managing editor of, “Ask The Computer Lady”.
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