What I mean by that specifically is putting things into your feed that nobody actually intended to share. e.g. "XXXX liked this thing!" Or generating notifications of non-events, like "Hey, share a thing!"
The share button is literally right next to the 'uplike' button. And they specifically did not press it. But you're gonna press it for them, because you gotta have content and folks keep pretty mum on facebook (and everywhere else) lately. There is very little I'm interested in sharing with every single person I know. And even less I'm interested in sharing with strangers a la Twitter.
To say nothing of the overall click-baity trollish quality of aformentioned articles. Every time one of my dear friends gets triggered and feeds the trolls, facebook is dutifully shoving it in my face. There is a high correlation between virality and unredeemable shit stirring.
Facebook is doing it. Twitter is doing it. Reddit is perhaps the most shameless of all with their mobile app working hard to spam you with posts that you.... haven't commented on, or even upvoted. (I can't say one way or the other about Snapchat because I'm not a millennial.)
I do believe this is the intersection of 100% social media saturation and the public markets' relentless demand for growth. This is peak social media. They're flogging live video hard, but news flash: I grew up when you had to make plans to watch your favorite TV show, and it's the worst. Live video sucks. I got shit to do. I can't even be bothered to DVR things any more.