Clickbait is a pejorative term describing web content that is aimed at generating online advertising revenue, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy, relying on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs and to encourage forwarding of the material over online social networks. Clickbait headlines typically aim to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make the reader curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content.[1][2][3]
By 2014, the ubiquity of clickbait on the Internet had begun to lead to a backlash against its use.[3][4] Satirical newspaper The Onion launched a new website, ClickHole, that parodied clickbait websites such as Upworthy and Buzzfeed,[5] and in August 2014, Facebook announced that it was taking technical measures to reduce the impact of clickbait on its social network,[6][7][8] using, among other cues, the time spent by the user on visiting the linked page as a way of distinguishing clickbait from other content.