Lying clickbait in the age of coronavirus

Clickbait purveyors are up to their old tricks using erroneous and fake photos to entice people to click on their weblinks. What follows are some of the latest I’ve spotted.

Revcontent recently ran a sponsored article titled “20 selfies taken before death” It used a fake photo of a man supposedly taking a selfie with a great white shark. Here is the Photoshopped photo along with the original of the shark.

Here’s an old chestnut for lying clickbait. A recent Taboola article touted “After her massive weight loss, Precious is gorgeous now!” It used side-by-side photos of “Precious” actress Gabourey Sidibe and Instagram model Samrah.
Similar articles have used photos of Sidibe side-by-side with actress-singer Jennifer Hudson and “Bad Girls Club” star Catya Washington.

An article promoted by LiveIntent was titled “20 photos of nurses who nearly took it too far at work.” It featured a photo of curvy Instagram model Janet, aka Thathoneydip. From what I can tell, she’s no nurse.

A Taboola article titled “Hollywood marriages that actually lasted” used a photo of actors Dean Cain and Brooke Shields. The two dated but never married.

Another Taboola article titled “Jaclyn Smith is almost 90; This is her now” had its facts wrong. Smith is 74.