User:Jaycrawford84/Clickbait

Use
Clickbait has also been used as a way to garnish impressions to receive more revenue on various posts throughout the history of the internet. With the use of various eye-catching phrases and comments, the Author of an article will be able to create a hook or form of emphasis that will be able to cause a significant increase in the amount of impressions that a webpage, video, etc. has.

As of the past few years, the video-sharing platform Youtube has shared it's click-through rates (CTR's) for the videos posted on it's platform. When looking the data revealed, it shows that videos with hyperbolic or even misleading titles that were created for the purpose of being attention-grabbing displayed higher amounts of click-through rates than that of videos who did not use clickbait. Clickbait videos, also referred to as "videos that are more likely to be clicked", generally generate higher amounts of click-through rates. This ultimately leads to higher revenue and optimization of a content creator's overall engagement.

Clickbait is also used in abundance in streaming platforms that thrive with targeted-ads and personalization. At the International Consumer Electronics Show, Youtube revealed that most of the videos watched and watch-time generated did not come from google search, but from personalized advertisements and the recommendations page. Recommendations on youtube are driven by a viewers personal watch history and videos that get an abundance of clicks. With a streaming platform like youtube, which has upwards of 30 million active users a day, the videos that are watched are very likely to be that with clickbait in either the title or thumbnail of the video, garnishing attention and therefore clicks.

Controversy
Clickbait is a topic that brings a lot of divisiveness amongst communities that rely on clicks for revenue. While some content creators see it as just an essential way to accumulate clicks on their videos, clickbait has also been seen as an issue online for a few various reasons. Clickbait has been said to ruin the intellectual honesty of news publications, and further leading to public distrust of mainstream media. It has been accused of delegitimizing various substantial issues when a publication uses clickbait, as approval ratings and bias checkers for news publications that have used clickbait in the past is much lower than those who have not.

Clickbait has also been used in association with online malware and cyberattacks across the net. With the increasing number of youth using the internet for various reasons, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Stay-at-home orders, many children are at a higher risk of cyberattacks due to clickbait. Teens and children who are attracted by personalized ads are met with redirections to malicious sites through the use of clickbait. This has caused many platforms, search engines, and routers to detect clickbait and prevent it from performing a cyberattack on someone who is more vulnerable.