ZAP // DALL-E-2
In the quest to have more interactions with their content, digital creators are deliberately trying to provoke anger in users.
“I get a lot of hate,” says content creator Winta Zesu. In 2023, she won 150 thousand dollars with publications on social networks.
What sets Zesu apart from other influencers is that the people who comment on his posts and drive traffic to his videos are often driven by anger.
“Every video of mine has had millions of views due to hateful comments“, explains the 24-year-old.
In the videos, she documents the life of a model in New York City, in the United States. Your biggest problem is being too pretty.
What some people making comments don’t realize is that Zesu is playing a character.
“I get a lot of nasty comments,” he says from his apartment in New York. “People say ‘you are not the prettiest girl‘ or ‘please lower the ball, you have too much confidence’.”
Winta Zesu is part of a growing group of online creators creating content that serves as “hate bait” (rage baiting, in English).
The objective is simple: record videos, produce memes and write posts that provoke visceral anger in people. As a result, they have thousands, even millions of likes and shares.
Rage baiting is different from its clickbait cousin, which is very common on the internet. In this, a headline is used to encourage the reader to click to see a video or report.
“Hate bait is created to manipulate people“, says marketing podcast producer Andréa Jones.
But the attraction exerted by negative content on human psychology is embedded in us, according to William Brady, who studies the brain’s interactions with new technologies.
“In the past, this was the type of content we really needed to pay attention to,” he explains. “That’s why we have these biases built into our attention and our learning”
The rise of hate baiting has coincided with the rise of payment for content by major social media platforms.
These creator programs reward creators for likes, comments and shares. They allow the publication of sponsored content and are considered responsible for the increase in rage-baiting.
“If we look at a cat, we say ‘oh, how cute’ and scroll down. But if we see someone doing something lewd, we might comment ‘that’s terrible,’” explains Jones. “And the algorithm considers this type of comment as higher quality engagement.”
“The more content a user creates, the more engagement they get and the more they receive”, he continues, looking worried. “Therefore, some creators will do anything to get more views, even if it’s something negative or if it incites anger and hatred in people. This creates disconnection.”
Content created to generate hate can come in many forms, from absurd food recipes to attacks on your favorite pop star. But, in a worldwide election year like 2024, the practice has also spread to politics, especially in the United States.
Brady notes that “there was a spike in the run-up to the election [americanas]as it is an effective way of mobilize your political group to perhaps vote and act.”
The American elections were weak on political issues, but centered around hate. “They were hyperfocused on ‘Trump is horrible for this reason’ or ‘Harris is horrible for that reason’.”
An investigation by BBC social media reporter Marianna Spring found that users of X (formerly Twitter) were receive “thousands of dollars” from the social media platform for sharing content that included misinformation, AI-generated images and conspiracy theories.
Scholars of these trends are concerned about too much negative content, which can lead the average person to “shut down.”
“It can be very tiring to have all these strong emotions, all the time,” says communications professor Ariel Hazel, from the University of Michigan, in the United States. “This disconnects them from the journalistic environment and we are seeing more and more people actively avoid the news all over the world.”
Others worry about the normalization of hate outside the internet and the damaging effects on people’s trust in the content they observe.
“Os algorithms amplify hate and make people think that this is more normal”, says social psychologist William Brady.
Brady highlights that “what we know from certain platforms, like X, is that political extremist content is actually produced by a very small fraction of their user base, but algorithms can amplify that as if it were a large majority. ”.
The BBC contacted the main social networks about the practice of rage-baiting on their platforms, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report.
In October 2024, Meta executive Adam Mosseri commented on Threads about the “increase in engagement bait” on the platform. He highlighted: “We are working to keep them under control.”
His competitor Elon Musk, owner of the X platform, recently announced changes to his Revenue Sharing Program with Creators.
The program will reward content creators based on engagement from the site’s premium users, such as their likes, replies and shares. Previous payments were based on ads seen by premium users.
TikTok and YouTube offer users the chance to earn money from their posts or by sharing sponsored content. But both platforms have rules that allow them to demonetize or suspend profiles that post misinformation. Already the X does not have similar guidelines in this regard.
The conversation with Winta Zesu in New York took place days before the American elections and we couldn’t help but talk about politics.
“I don’t agree with people who use hate bait for political reasons,” said the content creator. “If they are really using it to inform and instruct people, that’s fine. But if they use it to spread misinformation, I completely disagree.”
“That stop being a joke“, he concludes.
