Illustration by Dini Lestari
Last night, the multimillion dollar ID card corruption case took a turn when its main suspect, house speaker Setya Novanto went missing. Nobody knew exactly where he is but SetNov himself—and an online news with headline that read: “Setya Novanto Ditemukan Tewas Mengambang di Pantai Baron” (Setya Novanto Was Found Dead, Floating on the Baron Beach). We'll save you a click—it's a story about a child, coincidentally also named Setya Novanto, who was found dead last year. But the viral article didn't stop people from believing, for a brief moment, that Indonesia's most wanted man is dead.Using somebody else's tragedy to get clicks is not only unethical but also rude. This is exactly the kind of clickbait headlines that an anonymously-ran Twitter account @ClickUnbait fights against every single day.The anonymous admins of this account spend a lot of time reading and examining online news and summarizing those stories so that readers don’t have to deal with clickbait headlines. And people love what they do, it seems. It only took them less than one month to gain more than 27,000 followers. But not everyone is a fan of this account, especially online media outlets in Indonesia that rely on page views from clickbait headlines.But their mission is fight against clickbait, not against online media or digital advertising, one admin, who chose to not reveal their name for privacy, told VICE. Exposing clickbaits is not the only thing the group do on Twitter, he said. If they see good headlines, they will let their followers know, using the hashtag #JudulYangBaik or #GoodHeadline, and by recommending stories using #RekomendaKlik.“We hope that people on internet still want to read quality and substantive news," he told me. "Just because we post the conclusions on Twitter, I hope it doesn’t make people less willing to read the articles on their own."A 2016 study of literacy rates in 61 countries around the world puts Indonesia 60th. So you can imagine what bad headlines and clickbait captions do for us—it's no surprise that way too many people believe in hoaxes.We got in touch with one of the people behind ClickUnbait about their controversial account, why they want to retire and how they make time to read countless of clickbait stories every day.VICE Indonesia: When and how did ClickUnbait start?
ClickUnbait: It started on October 23, 2017. It was in the evening. Our first tweet is not even a month old. It's a newborn baby. We had an idle account that’s been active since 2013, so we just changed [the username]. How many people are behind this account? If it’s more than one person, can you tell me what you guys do for a living?
There are enough of us that we could share the frustration and exacerbation of reading the news. Since the beginning we knew that we couldn’t possibly do this alone, for one reason or another, and that’s why we’re doing this voluntarily. We're in different fields and have different skills, from journalism to finance, and we have different interests as well. But one thing for sure, we have the same mission and habit of being online a lot. How many times do you tweet everyday?
Since each of us has a day job, we always try to keep it fun. We don’t want ClickUnbait to mess with our jobs and lives. Each of us will remind the others that this isn’t like a journalism job that has a target. This should keep us sane even after we've read so many news stories. And this heavily depends on our moods, like when we’re bored queueing or just sitting around. Besides, some followers will get sick of us if we tweet too often. Why did you choose to do this anonymously?
If we used our real names, we could be famous and get on TV. The main reason is so we stay neutral. With our various backgrounds in terms of jobs, ethnicity, religion, sex, and political affiliation, being anon helps us stay as neutral as possible. What triggered you to create ClickUnbait?
Misleading headlines have always been worrisome. Not only to us, but also people around us. Generally they would protest and condemn them, but they’re yelling alone so their voices are drowned in a sea of constantly new pieces of information on social media. If you look for it manually, you would see how many people get upset with misleading headlines. ClickUnbait is trying to compile those voices so they’re heard by online media managements. What do you think is the biggest loss from clicking on a click-bait?
News is available for free from online media, people don’t have to spend a dime to read the news, unless it’s NY Times. But you also have to remember that people put their attention, time, and privacy to read news on internet. But in the end they have to put up with ads and hundreds of trackers. And online media gain their profit from there. Alluring readers with over-promising headlines for low quality content also shows that they treat readers as if we’re dumb and gullible. Isn’t a credible media company supposed to produce quality journalism and have a moral responsibility to educate their readers? In other countries, misleading headlines are fought and they have decreased significantly. But why do we still produce them here? What’s your biggest concern in relation to clickbait headlines?
Our concern is the trend where online media can put up any headlines they want and compromise the quality of journalism in Indonesia. Their choices of headlines seem to try to influence readers’ opinions because many people only read the headlines and not the whole article. If this trend persists, it’s not impossible that people lose the interest to read at all. Our literacy rate could sink even further because the headline doesn’t match the content. It’s like one step forward, two steps back.Can you mention three VICE Indonesia clickbait headlines?
Interesting. So far we find none. So maybe you want to try writing a clickbait story? What about #RoastMe?After being blocked by giant media company on Twitter for your subversive act, did you face resistance from other media that you criticize? Do you wish to ever retire from this?
We hope to retire one day! After blocking ClickUnbait, @Kompascom seems to tweet better when promoting their news. This is good and others should follow their footsteps. But unfortunately, we don’t have the data. But we are sure that this new way of tweeting brings Kompas.com more readers. What do you think, Kompascom?If all media companies are committed to not put up clickbait headlines and to do better, we are so ready to retire. But for now, we’re also very ready to go on a war so that our society can be enlightened. And by paying attention to our tweets, we hope that people have learned their lesson in regards to the pattern of clickbait news. If they have reached to that point, we will retire.There are many similar accounts both in and outside the country, some of them have been active longer than us. We never want to compete with them. Instead, we want to work together for better quality of our online media.
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ClickUnbait: It started on October 23, 2017. It was in the evening. Our first tweet is not even a month old. It's a newborn baby. We had an idle account that’s been active since 2013, so we just changed [the username]. How many people are behind this account? If it’s more than one person, can you tell me what you guys do for a living?
There are enough of us that we could share the frustration and exacerbation of reading the news. Since the beginning we knew that we couldn’t possibly do this alone, for one reason or another, and that’s why we’re doing this voluntarily. We're in different fields and have different skills, from journalism to finance, and we have different interests as well. But one thing for sure, we have the same mission and habit of being online a lot. How many times do you tweet everyday?
Since each of us has a day job, we always try to keep it fun. We don’t want ClickUnbait to mess with our jobs and lives. Each of us will remind the others that this isn’t like a journalism job that has a target. This should keep us sane even after we've read so many news stories. And this heavily depends on our moods, like when we’re bored queueing or just sitting around. Besides, some followers will get sick of us if we tweet too often. Why did you choose to do this anonymously?
If we used our real names, we could be famous and get on TV. The main reason is so we stay neutral. With our various backgrounds in terms of jobs, ethnicity, religion, sex, and political affiliation, being anon helps us stay as neutral as possible. What triggered you to create ClickUnbait?
Misleading headlines have always been worrisome. Not only to us, but also people around us. Generally they would protest and condemn them, but they’re yelling alone so their voices are drowned in a sea of constantly new pieces of information on social media. If you look for it manually, you would see how many people get upset with misleading headlines. ClickUnbait is trying to compile those voices so they’re heard by online media managements. What do you think is the biggest loss from clicking on a click-bait?
News is available for free from online media, people don’t have to spend a dime to read the news, unless it’s NY Times. But you also have to remember that people put their attention, time, and privacy to read news on internet. But in the end they have to put up with ads and hundreds of trackers. And online media gain their profit from there. Alluring readers with over-promising headlines for low quality content also shows that they treat readers as if we’re dumb and gullible. Isn’t a credible media company supposed to produce quality journalism and have a moral responsibility to educate their readers? In other countries, misleading headlines are fought and they have decreased significantly. But why do we still produce them here? What’s your biggest concern in relation to clickbait headlines?
Our concern is the trend where online media can put up any headlines they want and compromise the quality of journalism in Indonesia. Their choices of headlines seem to try to influence readers’ opinions because many people only read the headlines and not the whole article. If this trend persists, it’s not impossible that people lose the interest to read at all. Our literacy rate could sink even further because the headline doesn’t match the content. It’s like one step forward, two steps back.Can you mention three VICE Indonesia clickbait headlines?
Interesting. So far we find none. So maybe you want to try writing a clickbait story? What about #RoastMe?After being blocked by giant media company on Twitter for your subversive act, did you face resistance from other media that you criticize? Do you wish to ever retire from this?
We hope to retire one day! After blocking ClickUnbait, @Kompascom seems to tweet better when promoting their news. This is good and others should follow their footsteps. But unfortunately, we don’t have the data. But we are sure that this new way of tweeting brings Kompas.com more readers. What do you think, Kompascom?If all media companies are committed to not put up clickbait headlines and to do better, we are so ready to retire. But for now, we’re also very ready to go on a war so that our society can be enlightened. And by paying attention to our tweets, we hope that people have learned their lesson in regards to the pattern of clickbait news. If they have reached to that point, we will retire.There are many similar accounts both in and outside the country, some of them have been active longer than us. We never want to compete with them. Instead, we want to work together for better quality of our online media.