In my opinion, honesty and artistic integrity comes down to article/video delivering the promised value/entertainment.

The purpose of a headline is to get more people to click so that they receive the value you've created. If your headline is a little less compelling - fewer people will receive the value, the world will be a little worse off. So if you believe in your ideas, and care about expressing them - you do whatever it takes to convey them successfully. Utilitarian ethics.

You know you are competing with a huge amount of clickbaity entertainment, so if the things you create are high quality, it makes sense to do things that won't predictably cause you to lose.

I understand your point of view and why you'd find this distasteful, and, personally, I don't use as much clickbait as I probably should. But my opinion on this stuff has shifted over time, so I just want to express it.