Lying clickbait: Pretty women as the honeypot

I’ve documented many times how online content promotion services like to use photos of pretty women to attract visitors.
Sometimes they use a vaguely misleading headline with a picture of a sexy woman. Other times they misidentify the woman in the photo.
In one recent example on Yahoo, they used a photo of busty English glamour model Keeley Hazell with an article titled “McKayla Maroney looks completely unrecognizable.”
Yeah, she’s unrecognizable because that’s not her.

Here’s what Olympic gymnast Maroney looks like today.

In another example on Yahoo, a content promotion service used a photo of curvaceous Russian model Anastasia Kvitko with an article titled “These Olympians are completely jaw-dropping now.” Kvitko was never an Olympic athlete. (Is motor-boating an Olympic sport?)

A Taboola article titled “Michael Jackson’s daughter is absolutely gorgeous” used a photo of actress Brooke Shields, who is definitely not Jackson’s daughter. It is inexplicable why Taboola didn’t use a photo of Paris Jackson here. She is quite attractive and actually is Jackson’s daughter.

As I’ve noted before, photos of gorgeous French actress Brigitte Bardot are often used to advertise articles unrelated to her. (See “Lying clickbait: Brigitte Bardot photos were never ‘classified.’”)
Here are two more recent examples. Bardot’s image was used to promote Taboola articles titled “Rare photos not suitable for history books” and “Long-lost mobster photos that will make your skin crawl.”

Another Taboola article titled “12 mysterious photos that cannot be explained” used a photo of actress Penelope Cruz. It is a magazine cover – done, explained.

Finally, here’s a lying clickbait article titled “Celebs who got their start in porn” that used a photo of actress Cameron Diaz. Normally I don’t click on these clickbait articles, but I had to check this one out. The list includes actresses like Diaz who have posed for nude photos, but have not done pornography. There’s a big difference.