Instagram is getting serious about keeping the trolls away from your photos. Earlier today, the company announced that it will be rolling out an enhanced comment filter that uses artificial intelligence to squash rude, spammy, and otherwise inappropriate comments.
The news, along with an in-depth breakdown of how the technology was designed and works, was initially announced on Wired, but you can get the important bits from Instagram’s own blog post.
The tool acts by automatically and intelligently detecting and removing comments it believes are either inappropriate or spam, and hiding them from everyone except the poster him or herself. They have no idea their comment is invisible, but nobody else can see it.
The same goes for the spam filter, which can detect ‘obvious spam in comments’ in a total of 9 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
If for some reason you don’t want these comments filtered, the intelligent filter can be turned off by clicking on the ‘…’ menu on your profile page and flipping the ‘Hide Offensive Comments’ slider off.
Both tools are powered by machine learning, meaning that, over time, they’ll get better at detecting inappropriate comments and leaving inappropriate seeming (but actually okay) comments alone.
“Our team has been training our systems for some time to recognize certain types of offensive and spammy comments so you never have to see them,” reads the IG announcement. “We believe that using machine learning to build tools to safeguard self-expression is an important step in fostering more inclusive, kinder communities.”
As the algorithms improve, Instagram is promising to make both filters available in more languages. For now, offensive comments will only be filtered in English, but expect ongoing updates.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Instagram celebrates 800M users with update that takes on comment trolls
Instagram officially hit 800 million users this week, but the Facebook-owned company has no interest in resting on its laurels. In fact, alongside its “hey, we added another 100M users… no big deal” announcement, the company continued its crusade against comment trolls by launching the most powerful commenting controls the app has seen yet.
The numbers bit was only mentioned briefly in Instagram’s news release. “Our community has grown to 800 million, with 500 million using it every day,” writes Instagram. “It’s more important than ever to strengthen our commitment to safety and kindness.”
And so the company has added some interesting new comment controls. Namely: filtering who can comment on your posts if you have a public account, and the ability to block individual accounts from commenting on your pictures. The controls look like this in your Settings:
In addition to the updated commenting controls—which is just the latest in a series of ‘safety and kindness’ updates the company has released—Instagram also added anonymous reporting of Live Video to their mental health resources. If you are viewing a live broadcast that has you worried about the poster, you can anonymously report the post, which will show the person “a message offering help with options to talk to a helpline, reach out to a friend or get other tips and support.”
To learn more about these updates or see them in action for yourself, head over to the Instagram blog or update your iOS and Android apps to the latest version.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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