VICE: You told Jack Shafer of Reuters that you don’t have a problem with headlines that ask questions, which leaves only teasing, "curiousity gap"–exploiting tweets in your crosshairs. But you don’t appear to be going after some of the worst clickbait offenders—sites like Upworthy and the God-awful Facebook mom feed, Elite Daily. Are those sites just too easy to target?Me. RT @jackshafer: New @ReutersOpinion: The guy who reads crap on the Web so you don’t have to
— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 4, 2014
Jake Beckman: It’s not that headlines with questions are always OK—sometimes they’re legitimate, and sometimes they’re not. What I’m targeting, though, are the tweets: how these articles are positioned on social media in an attempt to score easy traffic. I definitely include Upworthy, and just recently followed Elite Daily—I’m always looking for more publishers to follow. Usually it’s just a matter of timing—when I’m looking for tweets and how recently the offending tweets were published.
Running a Twitter feed doesn’t pay, as much as we all wish that was the case. What do you do for a living?A bigger shark. RT @IFLScience: But what was it? Find out here: pic.twitter.com/0sDOpFgY1b
— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 9, 2014
I run @SavedYouAClick as a personal side project. I work for RebelMouse, a publishing platform with a focus on social content. I used to work in breaking news and editorial at ABC News and Bloomberg TV, so I'm very familiar with how newsrooms work.I like to imagine you starting @SavedYouAClick in a fit of drunken rage after reading a dumb Huffington Post story. Is that how it went down, or have you been planning this all along?
I started using #SavedYouAClick on some early tweets from my personal account whenever I'd see tweets that were particularly egregious. It was Alex Mizrahi, who runs @HuffPoSpoilers, who suggested in a Twitter thread that I register the account. So I did and started tweeting with a few hundred followers. It wasn't until last weekend that the growth in followers shot through the roof. I'm glad that it's resonating with so many people.
Some have argued that all journalism is essentially clickbait in one form or another. What’s your endgame here? Do you want a return to straight-laced headlines like “Man Starts Twitter Account to Fuck with Large Publications”?No. They’re creating a font. For computers. RT @Digiday: Can Bic's crowdsourcing campaign get people excited about writing again?
— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 9, 2014
I'd love to see publishers think about the experience of their readers first. I think there's an enormous opportunity for publishers to provide readers with informative updates that include links so you can click through to read more. Instead, we see publishers withholding more and more information on social. That's not right.
There are so many different types of clickbait that I see that it's tough to say. I will say that my least favorite thing to see is a tweet phrased as a question, and when I click the question is answered in the actual headline. Not even the first paragraph. It's just so clear that publishers are trying to tease their stories on social, instead of using Twitter to inform.
What’s your method for finding and processing these links?Because it's gun control. RT @thenation: Why we never talk about the one thing that might actually prevent the next mass murder:
— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 8, 2014
I do everything manually. I follow hundreds of publishers' accounts between my personal timeline and @SavedYouAClick. I check Twitter every so often until I find one that works for @SavedYouAClick. And yes, I actually click on all of the links.I can only see so many tweets by myself, but the response from Twitter has been amazing. It's been really nice to see people flagging stories by mentioning the account. A lot of people ask me to read specific articles for them, which I'll only do if they seem interesting or relevant.Are you a masochist?
I like to think that I'm more of an altruist.Clickbait seems like a quick and dirty way to get web traffic. With the rising popularity of @SavedYouAClick, outlets are beginning to introduce your account to their readers, but only a few have actually reached out to you. Why is this? Is everyone just really fucking lazy, or do they know people will read about the account and not necessarily care who the person behind it is?
I think it's because it's incredibly easy to embed a string of tweets in an article and call that journalism. It's much easier than actually asking me some questions.
With all this attention, how drunk are you with power right now?No school buses. Walk to school. RT @Upworthy: This school district has the secret to happy teachers, happy parents, AND happy kids. What?!
— Saved You A Click (@SavedYouAClick) June 9, 2014
I'm just excited that this idea is resonating with so many people, and it's been really cool to see this idea catch on around the world. It's just my way of trying to help the internet be less terrible.Follow Justin Glawe on Twitter.