Instagram expands AI to photo content in campaign against online bullying

Online bullying is a common problem today, and it’s not rare that social media users get death threats for all kinds of things. To help fight this, Instagram is turning to artificial intelligence. Over the upcoming weeks, Instagram will unroll the feature that will be able to automatically detect bullying in photos and their captions.

Instagram has already been using AI to spot trolling and bullying in comments. The platform will now expand the system to include photos and their captions in an attempt to fight the unpopular trend. According to Engadget, the algorithm will be based to detect harassment that “hasn’t been reported for a while, if at all.” And when the AI spots the abusive content, human moderators will still make the final call whether the content should be removed.

In addition, Instagram is rolling out a feature that will filter out hateful comments during live video broadcasts. This feature is optional, and it’s already available around the world. As for the system detecting bullying in photos, it shall be rolled out over the upcoming weeks.

In my opinion, online bullying is definitely something we need to fight against (and any other kind of bullying, for that matter). I’ve seen people pour out death threats over the most ridiculous things, such as a stack of “fake pancakes.”

However, I believe that education comes first. It can prevent bullying from happening in the first place, but also teach people how to tackle it when it happens. The algorithm which spots bullying is just a small step towards the end goal and it won’t solve the problem. But it’s still a step forward and a piece of a very complex puzzle.

[via Engadget]