Bait Advertising and the Menace of Fake News on Social Media

Social media users have continually been exposed in one way or another to some kind of unpleasant experience as a result of the activities of unruly advertisers, who use all sorts of tactics including bait advertising and fake news to lure unsuspecting surfers to unsavory contents on their website. 

The saturation of the social media space with all forms of contents, promoting different kinds of products and services have increased competition and have driven some advertisers to desperation point, whereby they start using any available marketing method to promote their products and services, and giving little or no consideration to the sensitivity of the public or compliance to any form of business ethics.

Why is Fake News Selling?

These days, it is common place to find news content with flashing red and bold banner headlines as 'Breaking News’ that attracts visitors to want to read the sensational news. Such news items are often targeted at celebrities, top government functionaries and wealthy individuals in business. Sometimes these breaking news may be about the death of an individual or about a scandalous sexual activity.

Fake news is a type of hoax or deliberate spread of misinformation, be it via the traditional news media or via social media, with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically. One of such example is the recent news about the death of the president of Nigeria, Mohamadu Buhari which was published by a fake news website. These sites flash such breaking news to attract visitors to click on the link which then takes them to a product page. This form of advertising is known as Bait Advertising and they are in most cases considered as deceitful.

Most Bait Advertising on social media and news feeds channels usually misleads customers to other sites that contain products or services that are completely different from what is displayed on the bait advert. In other cases, ads are displays with low price, but on visiting the online store containing these products, the customers discover that the advertised products are of inferior quality, and often at prices higher what was initially displayed on the advert.

What is Bait Advertising?

The definition of Bait Advertising by Technopedia.com describes it as an unethical advertising technique that involves luring the customer in with a promise of a sale or an inexpensive item that they may be interested in, and once their attention is captured, the online advertiser changes the scheme by making the product unavailable and then directing the consumer to like a product that is more expensive.

This menace has led to the creation of a new industry for Ad blocker software which have provided a quick fix by allow customers to take control and filter out deceptive advertisements on their social media pages, which have led unsuspecting public to scam websites. These bait advertisements are the main reason why the social media magnate, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg's of Facebook went all out in an open confrontation with Wladimir Palant, Eyeo's founder and publisher of AdBlock Plus, over their attempt to block unsolicited publishers adverts.

According to a Business Insider report, up to 30% of all internet users now use ad blockers. To show the enormity of the nuisances, even Google, in 2019, rolled out its own version of ad blocker to try and curtail the impact of problematic ads on users. These figures are reflective of the enormity of the level of dissatisfaction that unwanted advertisements are causing internet users. The use of Ads Blockers have been estimated to cost Advertisers about $3.45 billion annually, which has resulted to dwindling advertising revenue, and has led many publishers and content providers to fight back by insisting that their customers must unblock the AdBlockers on their systems before they can be granted full access to news feed.

A Solution in Sight

In December 15, 2016, Facebook Vice President, Adam Mosseri announced in the company's News Feed a plan to "Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News", stating that the company is focusing on four keys areas of improvement in its efforts of scrubbing the web of erroneous stories and fallacious "facts." One of the ways, he said, is by easier reporting, whereby Facebook users can report fake article if they spot any by clicking the upper right-hand corner of a post. The other methods he mentioned include identifying a fake article by processing it through a fact checking system and then flag and dispute such news , and the others are by informed sharing and disrupting financial incentives for Spammers

The widespread outcry and criticism of Facebook for not doing enough about the menace of fake news and bait advertisements, has yielded some result, which has lead the company to introduce these measures, signaling the beginning of the collaboration of Advertisers and Publishers to finally address the use of fake news as bait in social media marketing.