Facebook has already been involved in several controversies by being accused of allowing users to easily share fake news and hate messages on the social networks. The company announced a series of measures to avoid that problem, but they were only valid for Facebook itself. Starting today, Instagram — which is owned by Facebook — will also have the new tools against misinformation and hate speech.
“We want you to trust what you see on Instagram. Photo and video based misinformation is increasingly a challenge across our industry, and something our teams have been focused on addressing,” said the company in a statement. With the help of fact-checking agencies, Instagram will analyze the content published on the social network to determine whether or not they are truthful.
The program was already being tested with some users in the United States, and it’s now being released globally. Whenever a photo or video reported as fake news appears on the feed, Instagram will show a warning above it. Users can still choose to view the content regardless of the warnings.
It will also be possible to see the comments of the fact-checking agencies about that post, and the app will ask if the user really wants to share the post anyway. The company says it uses artificial intelligence technology so that any content already reported as misinformation will be recognized even when it is reposted by another account.
In a related statement, Facebook said that the Instagram app will also detect and warn about bullying and hate speech comments.
“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.”
These features can already be seen by some users in the latest version of the Instagram app.
What do you think of these Facebook efforts to prevent these issues? Share you opinion with us in the comments below.
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