For a couple of days 
, is warning you when you are about to post a “potentially offensive” caption for a photo or video.
It works like that: Your caption gets compared to other captions that previously got reported by other users.
If your caption is not similar, you will not get any notification. However, if you are about to post an offensive caption, Instagram encourages you to change it. You are not getting forced to change anything. This is just an encouragement to rethink maybe if you really want to proceed.
The same concept exists since July already with comments.
Another feature they implemented already a while ago was the so-called “shadow ban,” making the comments under somebodies post only visible for the person who wrote the comment, but nobody else. This is basically the strategy of simply ignoring your bully till this mean person is getting simply too tired and stops.
As you can see Instagram is trying to create a bully and hate-free zone which I believe is extremely good since Instagram is not just used by adults but in fact, 72% of 13-17-year-olds use it (sproutsocial) and if we are completely honest with ourselves then wether it was ourselves or other people, teenagers can be really mean and rude sometimes.
However, even adults in a professional environment are writing something which another person might find offensive. For example, when you browse through Linkedin, a social network to find jobs, and you scroll through the comments you can here and there find heated discussions, which are maybe on a different level language-wise, but that doesn’t make a comment itself less offensive or inappropriate. Does the person mean it? Some probably, but I believe that it is also connected with being on the internet. Instead of reading the post or comment, we are publishing to millions of people again and respond in a calm and well-overthought manner; we click the button.
Therefore a small reminder that this comment might insult a different person might help to sit back for just one second to rethink whether you mean it or your emotions take over.
What do you think about the new way Instagram is going?
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https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/16/21024051/instagram-captions-potentially-offensive-ai-moderation-bullying-edit
https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/16/instagram-warns-about-bullying-captions/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKEBD9C8AzR6tdtfOZDioY2rKo-6VLJ3ImAp6Bjb2dwXzua4gXdRq5kJxBQF7Yqxi1_AYITY_WySvCAwCBeRLkazVwpazaqWGv_W8aFzWDpJUOX4Ht-2CgbHvOkY1miCDhhL2u0Kbqkh0M4VLiuZ8N3XU3C1P2eCVeI08s91_Kme
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/
I think the initiative Instagram is taking to make social media a better place is great! I hope all other platforms follow suit; since right now most of them allow all sorts of toxic behaviours, posts and comments in the name of “free speech”.
Great news that finally 10 years after Instagram was founded such a feature arrived. At the product development stage, many people do not realize that tech could actually harm others. After all, Instagram seems to be aware of this, as evidenced by the new feature.
We also have another application of AI technology to help solve a specific problem. The question is whether AI can recognize if something is bullying or offensive? The former is intentional, the latter is subjective. Having open and honest conversations to discover truth requires the risk of being offensive, but it can be done without any intention to bully.
After all, it’s positive that Instagram noticed an area for improvement in the functioning of its platform.
I was always against online bullying and I am really glad that creators of these platforms are seriously thinking about stoping this unwanted trend so we can stop boosting our week self-esteem. Very intresting this is also comming for Facebook and Messenger users as quite soon we won’t be able to screenshot private messages without other person knowing. It’s a real deal breaker as it stops unwanted information flow. Good blog!
Generally the problem of bullying, hate speech and fake news is very peculiar. With bullying and hate speech it is a bit easier to detect and usually in company’s competence to fight with it.
But for me interesting problem is with fake news.
Of course basically for instance Facebook should fight with fake news on their feed. But… is it that simple? Fake news create buzz and buzz (shares, comments, likes) create traffic. Traffice means more poeple viewing adds and more potential reach.
So on one hand it is in facebook will to fight with fakenews and bullying. On the other hand it may not always be so obvious.
The most worrying is that no matter what the dcision of the algorithm is.. the ones harmed in the impact are – humans.