Instagram warns users against offensive captions to curb online bullying
Instagram is rolling out a new feature that notifies users when their captions on a photo or video may be considered offensive, courtesy of its AI algorithm.
Instagram continues to fight against online bullying and hate speech on social media. Now, Instagram is rolling out a new feature that notifies users when their captions on a photo or video may be considered offensive. Instagram says its AI recognises various forms of bullying on Facebook-owned social networking platform.
Earlier this year, Instagram launched a feature that notifies people when their comments may be considered offensive, even before they are posted. Instagram says that the move like this "can encourage people to reconsider their words when given a chance."
"Today, when someone writes a caption for a feed post and our AI detects the caption as potentially offensive, they will receive a prompt informing them that their caption is similar to those reported for bullying. They will have the opportunity to edit their caption before it’s posted," Instagram said in its blog post.
Instagram says that in addition to limiting the reach of bullying, this warning helps educate people on is not allowed on the photo and video-sharing social networking platform. This feature will be rolling out in select countries while Instagram plans to expand it globally in the coming months.
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In related news, Instagram is expanding its fact-checking program around the world. Instagram is now letting fact-checking organisations globally to evaluate and estimate the nature and quality of misinformation on the platform.
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Instagram says that these partners independently assess false information and minimise the spreading of disinformation. Instagram further claims to reduce such content from spreading on the platform by removing it from the Explore and hashtag pages.
In addition, Instagram says such content will be labelled so users can decide for themselves whether they want to read, trust or share. Those labels appear to all Instagram users viewing that content in the feed, stories and direct messages.
Instagram says it uses image-matching technology to find further instances of this content and apply the label and reduce the duplication of misinformation. Facebook is expanding false and partly false content ratings to Instagram posts.