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Tag: headlines

  • Facebook May Not Let You Edit Article Headlines Anymore So That ‘Publishers’ Content Is Not Misrepresented’

    Though it’s not an entirely new phenomenon, headline skimming has most certainly increased in the social media era. Who the hell has time to read every article someone posts on Facebook? Most of the time, it’s sufficient to read the headline, check out the brief article preview description, look at the attached image and move on. Even if you aren’t trying to be a headline skimmer, your brain is going to pick up bits and pieces of what you see.

    And since many of us get the majority of our news from Facebook, this can be a problem. Especially considering Facebook lets you edit articles’ headlines and preview descriptions.

    Here’s what I’m talking about.

    Take this article from Business Insider with the headline “How Mark Zuckerberg helps his friend, the CEO of $10 billion Dropbox.” Other than the creepy photo of Zuck, not a real showstopper of a headline.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-14 at 2.51.22 PM

    Now, here’s what I can do with that article.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-14 at 2.52.38 PM

    Basically, Facebook lets people edit the headlines surrounding article links they post because Facebook is not always 100% accurate when it comes to auto-generating them. But if someone wants to pull something and misrepresent articles’ content, it’s that easy.

    That could all be changing, however. Facebook says it’s looking into changing this feature because its “automatic rendering tech” has improved over the years. Here’s what a spokesperson told The Huffington Post:

    We’ve improved our automatic rendering technology so that most of the time, the link sharing preview does generate a title and description that accurately reflect what people want to share. As a result, we’re considering changing this feature to better align with how people share links today and to help ensure that publishers’ content is not misrepresented.

    HuffPo points to a real-life example of this, when actor/comedian D.L. Hughley shared an article that had its headline altered. The original article, a HuffPo story titled “Bristol Palin Announces She’s Pregnant”, had been altered to read “Bristol Palin Announces She’s Pregnant By A Black Man”. This led to some really quality Facebook posts, as you can imagine.

    The feature allowing for headline editing is useful. Especially when you really want to share something but Facebook won’t display everything properly. But it does have the ability to be abused. Easily. Hopefully Facebook can find a way to solve the latter while keeping some of the editing functionality intact.

  • ESPN Has Another Asian Athlete Headline Misstep

    After the Jeremy Lin mess, you would think ESPN’s editorial staff would be on high alert in relation to headlines aimed at sports figures with Asian backgrounds.

    But no; here were are again, after what was (hopefully?) an honest mistake on the part of ESPN’s web editors, all in an effort to make witty headlines for the .com entity. The latest unintended target was wide receiver Hines Ward, previously of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ward was released by the Steelers earlier this week, and again, in an effort to sound catchy, hip, and “with it,” ESPN.com produced the following headline to announce Ward’s roster situation:

    No Happy Endings

    Now, in the context of sports business, this isn’t such a bad headline. Ward wanted to stay with his old team and his old team had different ideas. No happy ending for Ward on that front. So far, so good. But then, the realization that Ward is, in fact, Asian having been born in Korea. Ward’s father was African-American and his mother was Korean. In case you aren’t aware of why a “happy endings” headline might be considered offensive, allow Urban Dictionary to educate you.

    In case UD is “too much” for you, the guys at Robot Chicken made a parody of the whole “happy ending” concept:


    As pointed out by Yahoo’s NFL blog, Shutdown Corner, Alicia Barnhart was the first to notice ESPN’s unfortunate choice of headlines, and she took to her Twitter account to inform the unwashed masses:

    (image)

    As of now, the fallout for the Hines Ward headline isn’t anywhere near what approached the reaction to Lin’s headline. The Ward headline was removed, either through a simple rotation of stories or someone finally made the connection. There hasn’t been any kind of announcements of suspensions or firings, however, leading us to believe this particular headline was much more innocuous than the one used for Jeremy Lin.

    Maybe Alicia Barnhart just needs to get her mind out of the gutter. 😉