And that is not a good thing say critics of what’s been called “social content.”

They are talking about the way sites such as Upworthy and Buzzfeed are effectively gaming Facebook in order to get their content shared.

Their method is to tweak headlines until they drip emotion (often accompanied with pictures of crying women and children). If that makes no sense to you, visit the upworthy generator, an algorhythim that does the work for you.

The downside: Facebook are hip to what’s going on and aren’t too happy about this kind of content – content people do actually like, after all – appearing in news feeds. They’d rather people read the kind of upmarket stuff advertisers like to position against.

Furthr pal Tim Tucker suggests you go to 38 minutes into this video  for a really good discussion of the “Upworthy problem.”

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