The social network Instagram states that it wants to take stronger action against content that contains potentially hurtful speech or that could worry users. Instagram wants to display these posts further down in users’ feeds and stories, making them less visible.
On the one hand, this affects posts with potentially dangerous content (bullying, hate speech or incitement to violence), which, according to the blog post, are recognized by Instagram’s systems. Posts that could worry individual users are also affected.
In order to recognize posts that could worry a user, Instagram wants to use posts that the person in question has already reported as a guide. Posts that that person would likely also report should then appear further down the feed, Instagram said.
Only posts affected, not entire accounts
Instagram’s measures should only relate to individual posts. The service does not want to devalue entire accounts if individual posts have been reported by them. Recently, Instagram has also started doing this with posts that, according to the meta fact check, spread false information. However, if posts violate Instagram’s guidelines, they will be removed entirely and the authors notified.
In the Instagram feed, users see recent posts. In addition to ads, these are posts from accounts that you follow. On the other hand, there are posts that Instagram suggests. The suggestions are based on who the user follows and what he or she interacts with on the platform. Now the criterion is how likely it is that a user will report a post.
(gref)