In 2025, the phrase "rage bait"—the practice of creating provocative content to elicit anger—was the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year. Your anger on seeing something outrageous on the internet is being monetized for profit and is contributing to the polarization of our country and the world. Anger itself is being turned into profit, and not infrequently, the content is a lie.

Anyone who uses the internet, and especially social media, is exposed to what is known as clickbait. The "bait" term is analogous to fishing, where a hook is disguised by worm bait. Clickbait is a text or a link designed to attract your attention and entice you to "click" on that link to read the linked piece of online content. This content is typically sensationalized and frequently misleading. It teases you by giving just enough information to make you curious, but not enough to satisfy that curiosity without clicking through the linked content. Many times, the clickbait headlines are at least partially dishonest by using enticements that do not accurately reflect the actual content delivered.

Rage baiting is a type of clickbaiting by eliciting outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic and online engagement—frequently with the goal of increasing revenue for the source or for political gain. When a person responds to an inflammatory post with an equally inflammatory tweet, they are rewarding the original poster. Social media algorithms like Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube reward increased positive and negative responses by directing traffic back to those chatting and amplifying them. They sell more advertising that way by using these sites to then target pre-existing biases of filtered audiences.

This is not new, but it is increasingly insidious and dangerous. In 2006, a Time Magazine article described how internet trolls—people who intentionally post inflammatory, offensive, or disruptive content online to provoke strong emotional reactions, frequently anonymously—were posting disruptive content. It didn’t take long for political actors to intentionally........

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