No, That Celebrity Is Not Moving Close To You.
A famous celebrity is not moving to Ballan, Ballarat, Bendigo or even Victoria. Last week a couple of large news outlets reported that Harrison Ford was moving to Ballarat to escape his Hollywood lifestyle. Then yesterday Adam Sandler was reported to be moving to Bendigo. Well we’re sorry to burst your bubble, but these are both untrue. These are both considered ‘fantasy news’ for the interest of entertainment, but there’s a more specific reason for these sensational untrue headlines, Money.
So how does it work? First a Celebrity moving to your home town is big news, so straight away, it peaks interest, you might check out the story resulting in a click on to the fake news webpage. Accompanied with a story about how the celebrity is sick of the lifestyle and loves the town in the headline, you may be left thinking Wow, could this be true? Then you share it and 10-50% of your friends list sees the same link and the same thing happens.
So, how does this result in money? It’s quite simple, ads, The more traffic these fake articles get, the more people end up clicking or seeing the ads on the site & that translates to cold hard cash.
While this particular series of sensational headlines don’t seem to be threatening computer security, it is headlines like these ones are sometime used to spread online malicious software. Sensational headlines & shcoking photos are often used as clickbait to generate traffic
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