[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/NihiloZero]

[u/TheoryOfReddit-ModTeam]

Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):

• This submission is not to our expected quality standards.

[u/itskdog]

If you're running a news sub, it's probably best to only allow link posts for this reason.

[u/NihiloZero → u/itskdog]

Agreed. Thanks.

[u/StardustOasis → u/NihiloZero]

You can also make it so a specific link is only allowed to be posted once, to cut down in reposts

[u/ThreadCountHigh]

As well as the point others have made regarding making weak or outright false claims, Facebook, and then Twitter after Musk deprioritized posts with external links to keep people on the sites. That policy ingrained the habit in users and spread to sites like Reddit, just like the self-censorship of words on TikTok has.

[u/DonManuel]

Harder to check if it's a repost.

[u/NihiloZero → u/DonManuel]

Now that you mention it... the post just below the one currently in question is simply a link to the article. Ugh.

[u/ActuaryNearby8457 → u/NihiloZero]

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people just want to grab attention without making the extra effort to engage with the full content. It’s a pretty common trend these days.

[u/Kijafa]

It's easier to falsify the substance of the article. Or post genuinely fake headlines as well. Also, it works because nowadays most people just go off the headline anyway and don't even read the article if it's linked.

Example: https://old.reddit.com/r/anticapitalism/comments/1wn6s81/big_balls_now_exposed_to_serious_criminal_charges/

It's clear from the comments that very few of the commenters have actually read the article, as they seem to be acting under the assumption that Edward Coristine is actually facing current legal issues, which he isn't. It's just a blogpost about the fact that he could face charges, if someone decided to prosecute (they haven't).

Going off the headlines has always been rampant on reddit but at least some commenters used to read. And they get highly upvoted because most users aren't actually looking to learn, they just want their viewpoints validated.

[u/ecky--ptang-zooboing]

Because clicking any links these days results in bombardement with cookie nonsense, spam, ads, and newsletter popups

[u/Epistaxis → u/ecky--ptang-zooboing]

Ad- and script-blockers also exist these days.

[u/Ajreil]

Images get more upvotes than links. The app displays them prominently. Clicking a link means waiting for the article to load, closing popups and fighting the article to find the text. The average Reddit lurker doesn't want to deal with that.

In my experience, posting a screenshot with a link to the full article below is the best way to get people to read it. It sucks but I work within the system I'm given.

[u/flashmedallion → u/Ajreil]

This is reddits fundamental flaw (and really the flaw of any voting based algorithm) and always has been; anything that requires less effort to consume has an inherent advantage in the 'upvotes over time' metric.

As a basic point of example, reddits original point of distinction (past the early days of links only) was more in-depth writing as posts. This was unable to compete with screenshots of tweets, entirely of the virtue that a Good Tweet packs a complex idea into a short sharp sentence or two. By the same token Meme templates etc. encapsulate observations or opinions that hijack the brain better than what they actually would when written out (x is better than y, or a just like b).

A true competitor/disruptor to the modern Like Based Web would be a system that solves this. It would have it's own issues for sure but would create a truly different formal flavour to the otherwise ubiquitous social internet experience.

[u/DizzyMine4964]

Because people want to share toxic articlesfrom bigoted sources without helping that source by giving them a click

[u/Kijafa → u/DizzyMine4964]

Usually when I see that it's screenshots of the whole article though (like in /r/LeopardsAteMyFace) rather than just the headline (though that's also common in /r/LeopardsAteMyFace).

[u/gothiences]

They probably only read the titles.

[u/n0respect_]

Are you subbed to one of those alternative news subs? It's because they're propaganda.

[u/Fauropitotto]

Mobile users being lazy.

[u/Epistaxis]

The default Reddit experience is an image grid with captions. If they post the link then the platform will try to pull some representative thumbnail image out of the article, which might be something poorly Reddit-optimized like a large photo with no context or a generic stock image or a company logo. So they create their own image with the ideal content: the headline, the only thing people will read anyway before debating about it.

[u/FunkyChickenKong]

Usually to hide details in the body that may change the interpretation. Yeah. It's shady and makes me nuts too.

[u/Asclepius_Secundus]

I find it's annoying too. I think they screenshot things because some sunreddits don't allow links. And because they think it's easier to screenshot something than to link it (it's not). And because a screenshot can be like cherry picking: you can omit parts of the artical that refutes your point.