Instagram failed to remove 93% of offensive comments directed at female politicians out of 1,000 examples flagged for violating the app’s rules, according to a report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Center Against Digital Hate.
The center said it collected offensive comments this summer from the Instagram accounts of 10 female officeholders — five Republicans and five Democrats. He said he reported the comments through the app and then checked back a week later to find the vast majority of them still online.
Many of the abusive responses left by Instagram contained sexually derogatory or violent threats. Instagram’s Community Guidelinesaccording to the center. The center said some of the comments contained explicit references to rape, injury or death of female politicians and were removed by Instagram.
In 93% of the examples, it is not clear whether Instagram took actions that were not removed, such as ranking offensive comments lower in discussions so that fewer people would see them.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, said it had not seen the report before it was released, but said it would review the samples collected by the center. It said it will remove anything that violates the rules, but added that not all offensive comments are violations.
The company said its systems are a work in progress.
“We provide tools so anyone can control who can comment on their posts, automatically filter offensive comments, expressions or emojis, and automatically hide comments from people who don’t follow them,” said Cindy Southworth, head of women’s safety at Meta. . in an email statement.
“We work with hundreds of security partners around the world to continually improve our policies, tools, detection and enforcement, and will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates our policies,” he said.
The report reaches a potentially historic moment for women in politics, with Vice President Kamala Harris seeking to become the nation’s first female president. He is expected to face former President Donald Trump in the November election.
Harris was among 10 female officeholders whose Instagram accounts the center investigated, and Instagram was no better at deleting offensive comments directed at her, the report found. The center said 92% of the 105 abusive comments directed at Harris were still online a week after they were reported to Instagram. The abuse included sexist and racist comments, the center said.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings. The offices of all female politicians included in the report have been asked for comment.
Imran Ahmed, director general of the Center Against Digital Hate, said the abusive comments and unstable use of Instagram show the pressures women often face after deciding to run for office.
“They’re trying to send a message to more women: you don’t belong in public life,” she said of the people who posted the comments.
“Abuse against women can deter some from deciding that politics is the right career for them,” she said.
Ahmed said that he should use Instagram its existing policiesincluding bans on hate speech, violent speech and inhumane speech, it said it should be more transparent with users about its reasoning when deciding on potential violations.
He said the center focused the report on Instagram rather than other social media apps because it’s a platform that “people think is safe” and the center wants to verify whether that’s true.
Abusive replies were still a minority of comments on Instagram, which has automated systems to catch abuse and harassment. According to the Center’s analysis of 421,361 comments, 1 in 25 responses to female politicians on Instagram may be toxic.
Instagram says its automated detection software catches 98% of hate speech before anyone reports it.
But according to the center, most of the abusive comments come from repeat offenders. Of the 1,000 sampled, 221 said the study had previously included comments from accounts targeting female politicians.