As we all probably know there is a lot of content on the internet that could be marked as inappropriate. This includes various mental health-related images.
Some social media platforms started banning content that refers to self-harm or suicide. Instagram, one of the most popular social media apps, is one of them. As stated on Cnet, “the photo-sharing app will no longer allow fictional depictions of such actions, including drawings, memes and graphic images from films or comics. It’s also pulling down other images that may not depict self-harm or suicide but includes “associated materials or methods””. The app took it a step further and as said on Cnet “accounts sharing this type of content won’t be recommended in search or other parts of the app”.
However, Instagram is not the only social media platform that decided to impose a ban on potentially harmful content. According to AI News, Pinterest, a popular social media page, “announced on World Mental Health Day that it’s reduced self-harm content by 88 percent over the past year using AI”. So how did they manage to do it? As stated on The Next Web “Pinterest announced in a blog post that for the past year, it’s been using machine learning techniques to identify and automatically hide content that displays, rationalizes, or encourages self-injury”. Moreover, it is continued with the fact that they are “now able to remove harmful content three times faster than ever before”.
In my opinion, it is crucial that we fight with harmful content on the internet as nowadays people spend more and more of their free time on social media. It is important to remember that self-harm content can not only be triggering for those who struggle with mental health issues but it can also encourage people to engage in self-destructive behaviors. Therefore, I find it very pleasing to see that artificial intelligence can help with detecting unhealthy content.
References:
https://www.cnet.com/news/instagram-bans-drawings-memes-that-depict-self-harm-or-suicide/
https://artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/10/11/pinterest-ai-reduce-self-harm-content-past-year/
https://newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/getting-better-at-helping-people-feel-better
Good post! Definitely social media is the greatest source of influence. Each day we observe hundreds of pictures and even don’t understand the extent of potential impact. Pinterest is the platform for getting inspired for the art, but not for injuring yourself. I hope, that instagram and other social media security departments will carefully check and maintain “pure” condition and will continue to fulfill its missions.
I, myself, wrote about Instagram going in the direction of creating a bully-free environment; therefore, I am really happy to see that Printest and hopefully other social media platforms are going to follow really soon.
In the end, there are so many children, teenagers, or even adults out there going through a bad phase, and by checking for one sad quote or picture, they suddenly get more and more till the whole page is covered with depression. It’s like a snowball effect.
On the one side, it’s good that you only see what you want, but in this case, it just drags you further down and down, and therefore having such a solution, I believe, is an excellent way to prevent the spiral of sadness at least a little.
I do agree with you on the importance of deleting posts that include harmful content, and even considering banning accounts of people, who happen to post such content. But, in my opinion, nowadays the line betweeen inapropriate content and the content that we simply do not like is very blurry. Simply saying, it has become too easy to delete someone else’s post if you happen just do not agree with something they posted, is sort of became a tendency.
In modern times, the social networks are probably the biggest influence on teenagers. Freedom they have there can sometimes be very dangerous for them and even push them in the wrong direction. I’m against fully limiting everything and only posting content, which is safe for everybody, but i support limiting what can be posted on certain sites and networks, and putting up age restrictions. This idea you presented is very interesting and may help many people in the future.