Twitter gets well-deserved attention for online harassment, but know who else has a huge problem there? Instagram. Big time.
"Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem,' as Taylor Lorenz reports for the Atlantic.
"The social network cast itself as the internet's kindest place. But users argue harassment is rampant, and employees say efforts to stem it aren't funded well or prioritized."
Says one unfortunate and prominent young IG personality, "Instagram is the No. 1 platform that I experience hate on." The piece goes into the numbers, it's a big thing that affects a lot of young people. One gets the impression that harassment wasn't something Instagram's designers considered, or hired professionals qualified to help them consider. And that design oversight is biting them and all their users in the butt.
Read the restLast week, Instagram announced a set of new features to limit bullying and "spread kindness," including comment filters on live videos, a "kindness camera effect to spread positivity," and the deployment of machine-learning technology to better detect bullying in photos.
When approached for comment, a Facebook spokesperson referred me to Instagram's communications team. Instagram declined to speak on the record about many of the particulars of its anti-harassment efforts.
"We want people to come to Instagram and have a positive experience—to make friends, find interests, and do all the things that make Instagram such a positive place," Newton wrote in an October statement to The Atlantic. "Bullying and harassment are completely counter to the experience we work to create.
