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Instagram has begun using image recognition and other tools to identify publications and articles that may contain inaccurate information and send them to Facebook's pool of partners who review the facts for review. If they are determined to be fake, Instagram will not recommend posts to new users in the Explorer or hashtag tab pages, as indicated first by Poynter.
Paris Martineau covers platforms, influence online and social media manipulation for WIRED.
But the image sharing network owned by Facebook does not suppress misleading publications; it will not retrograde them either in the main user feed, leaving millions of people vulnerable to misinformation.
Since 2016, Facebook has referred dubious publications to a team of more than 50 news agencies around the world. Anything determined to be false is tagged and demoted in the news feed; anyone who tries to share a fake post is warned against this. The same investigators will review Instagram posts, but those considered false will not be tagged as such and will not be downgraded to user feeds or the Instagram Stories carousel.
An Instagram spokesperson said the company was more focused on preventing new users from being exposed to misinformation through algorithms, rather than limiting the scope of misinformation. The spokesperson explained that the Facebook and Instagram approaches to misleading publications differ in part from the fact that Instagram does not have a redistribution button. The content posted by Instagram feeds comes only from the accounts they chose to follow, unlike Facebook.
Instagram is a hotbed of misinformation and inflammatory content designed to exacerbate tensions between different demographic groups. In 2017, the platform was the inescapable social network of the Russian propaganda branch called the Internet Research Agency, which used more than 130 fake Instagram accounts to spread polluted information and reinforce cultural divides between Americans. The IRA's top 10 accounts collectively garnered more than 120 million commitments on Instagram and counted hundreds of thousands of followers, according to a report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Instagram is also revealed to be an effective and popular tool among extremists and conspiracy theorists. After Facebook, YouTube, and other people banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars media organization last August, Jones and Infowars went on Instagram and used the site to educate a wide audience of people. And that they were finally banned from the platform – as well as several other extremists – last week.
Extremist accounts and other counterfeit forgers certainly owe their popularity to Instagram's recommendation page algorithms, such as the Explorer tab or hashtags. But their massive follow-ups also come from word of mouth and channels such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Crimping their ability to easily reach new audiences does not diminish their influence on those who are already trapped in these ecosystems sown with false information.
Instagram uses image recognition technology to identify publications that may contain inaccurate information. A spokesman said the company was looking for signals such as the intensive use of text overlay on images or the use of certain words in the comments of images to help discern what may warrant a control of the facts. In addition, when a company's fact checker identifies a particular publication or image on Facebook, Instagram uses image recognition technology to identify similar publications on Instagram and narrow their reach via the Explorer feed. and other areas of recommendation, said the spokesman.
An example of discredited disinformation found for the first time on Facebook and on Instagram, according to Instagram. The company did not remove the erroneous information or report it as such, but simply extracted it from the Explorer page and other public referral feeds.
Another example of a position considered to be misleading.
For the moment, Instagram indicates that company partners who conduct fact checks receive only a limited number of messages to review, although their decisions affect the type of content presented to all Instagram users. The total will remain limited over the next few weeks as the company will monitor the effectiveness of the fact-checking program.
Accounts whose messages are repeatedly reported as erroneous information will not be penalized beyond the scope reduced by Explore and other referral sites. The spokesman said that "Instagram" was considering "creating a system similar to Facebook that would allow publications that have been debunked by fact checkers to include a label stating this fact, but no one." Providing no timetable for such a decision. .
When asked why the company had taken so long to develop a program to slow the spread of misinformation, the spokesman pointed out the peculiarities of Instagram as a platform including the fact that most of the images posted are cropped, filtered or add text – which, in their opinion, makes it more difficult to detect certain types of problematic content with the help of automation technologies and recognition of images.
Instagram is working on a new tool to counter the misinformation related to vaccines, the spokesman said. If a user clicks on an anti-vax hashtag or content related to vaccine misinformation, Instagram will post a pop-up message containing educational materials about the vaccination. The spokesperson said that the exact details on the design of the pop-up and its deployment would still be under study, but he seems to be drawing inspiration from the similar pop-ups that appear for users' searches on the consumption of opioids and self-injury. , which Instagram says has been successful.
Instagram also plans to change its policies on account deletion, as announced by Engadget. Currently, users are only allowed to violate Instagram's guidelines if "a certain percentage" of messages they have posted in an undisclosed period of time is deemed to be contrary to the company's policies. Instagram will soon move to a simpler system based on strikes, with the number of offenses required for the remaining withdrawal remaining constant among all users, the spokesman confirmed.
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