Monday, October 17, 2016

This is not a real shark attack photo; It's more lying clickbait

The use of lying clickbait photos by content marketing services seems to have slowed, but the deceptive practice is still occurring. Top offenders include Revcontent and Taboola.
I’ve seen several examples of these services using photos from fictional TV shows and movies to promote supposed non-fiction articles.
One example is Taboola using a photo from “Jaws the Revenge” to promote an article on the “worst shark attacks ever recorded.”
The photo is pretty shocking, but is a complete work of fiction.




Another example uses a photo of the in-air breakup of Oceanic flight 815 from the TV show “Lost” for an article on air disasters. Taboola is the culprit once again.



I’m still seeing instances of lying clickbait articles that use photos of live celebrities to promote pieces on dead celebrities.
The latest have used photos of the very-much-alive actor Frankie Muniz and model Christie Brinkley.




Other celebrity articles use incorrect photos for articles about marriages and family.
One Taboola article titled “Celebrity kids who look exactly like their parents” featured side-by-side photos of actor Erik Estrada and singer Bruno Mars. The two are not father and son.




A sponsored article by Detonate.com titled “What’s Christopher’s secret to a long marriage?” featured two photos of Christopher Walken with women. The older photo shows Walken with actress Natalie Wood from the 1983 movie “Brainstorm.”
Wood, who died during production of “Brainstorm,” was not married to Walken.



Finally, an article by Revcontent titled “21 stars who’ve grown into being horrible looking creatures” transposes a photo of lovely actress Lisa Bonet with an older woman who is not Bonet. It’s a photo of a New York City drug addict named Cynthia from a series called “Faces of Addiction” by Chris Arnade.




Previous articles in the series:

The rise of lying click-bait photos with promoted articles (May 16, 2016)

More lying click-bait articles (June 5, 2016)

Lying click-bait articles: transgender celebrities and what actors look like today (June 22, 2016)

Lying click-bait articles: Dead celebrities edition (Aug. 10, 2016)

Lying click-bait articles with inaccurate photos (Aug. 13, 2016)

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