Instagram to put an end to bullying

15

October

2018

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Social media platforms bring us closer and bridge geographical differences, but sometimes they can be pretty dark places. Cyber-bullying is an important and alarming phenomenon that is on the rise as social platforms become more and more popular among teens.

For us, millennials Facebook might have been the go-to platform, but today’s generation Z have switched to Instagram. According to recent studies about 70% of US teens are using the platform daily. There are several cyber-bullying practices that have spread on the platform. In order to combat the cruel practices about a year ago Instagram introduced a filtering mechanism for offensive comments. Nowadays not only comments but among others, finstas aka fake instagrams have been used to post embarrassing or harassing pictures of others. On the 9th of October, the new head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri announced that they are expanding Instagram’s  filtering tool to photos, captions and comments on live videos. The AI enhanced tool filters out offensive or potentially bullying images and texts and sends it to Instagram’s moderators, who then investigate the cases.

Of course, the practice works on creating a safer online environment, but a potential risk lies in false positives. What do these mean for our generation’s meme factories or harmless banter among friends? In order to account for these errors, the personal relationship between the account owners is also factored in the algorithm, as well as previous interactions. This could lead to another potential backlash on the practice: privacy concern?

Instagram has started to roll out the new tool in honour of National Bullying Prevention Month in the US and the Anti-Bullying Week in the UK, during the month of October. Although it is definitely no silver bullet, hopefully Instagram’s efforts to fight cyber-bullying will result in social media being a bit safer and kinder place and it will not restrain free content creation and raise privacy concerns among users.

 

Carey-Simos, G. (2018). Instagram Introduces New Tools To Limit Bullying On Instagram • Featured, Instagram • WeRSM – We are Social Media. [online] WeRSM – We are Social Media. Available at: https://wersm.com/instagram-introduces-new-tools-to-limit-bullying-on-instagram/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Foster, A. (2018). The disturbing new cyber-bullying trend. [online] NewsComAu. Available at: https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/the-disturbing-new-cyberbullying-trend-gaining-popularity-with-students/news-story/b03a9e27ef8ef00d4d9195867fc2adfd [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Lorenz, T. (2018). Teens Are Being Bullied ‘Constantly’ on Instagram. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/teens-face-relentless-bullying-instagram/572164/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Mosseri, A. (2018). New Tools to Limit Bullying and Spread Kindness on Instagram. [online] Instagram. Available at: https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/10/09/new-tools-to-limit-bullying-and-spread-kindness-on-instagram/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Thompson, N. (2018). Instagram Launches An AI System to Blast Away Nasty Comments. [online] WIRED. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/instagram-launches-ai-system-to-blast-nasty-comments/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Vincent, J. (2018). Instagram is using AI to detect bullying in photos and captions. [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17954658/instagram-ai-machine-learning-detect-filter-bullying-comments-captions-photos [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

 

 

 

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The downsides of social media: cyberbullying

31

October

2013

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The rise of social media has many advantages. Nowadays it just takes a couple of clicks to share anything with your friends, create events, know what your friends are doing, etc. However, social media use has some disadvantages. A major disadvantage is cyberbullying. Because of the fact that it’s very easy to contact a person on a social network platform, it creates a lot of potential cyberbullying, and it happens a lot more than you would expect. Just a few findings of a study on cyberbullying:

– Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once.
– 70% of students report seeing frequent bullying online.
– 81% of young people think bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person.
– 90% of teens who have seen social-media bullying say they have ignored it. 84% have seen other tell cyber bullies to stop.
– Girls are about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying.
– Bullying victims are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider committing suicide.

The last fact is something that we, unfortunately, experience more and more these days. In October 2012 15 year old Amanda Todd from Canada killed herself after repeatedly being bullied online. She uploaded a nine-minute video to YouTube describing years of bullying that she said drove her to drugs and alcohol, all told with a set of handwritten note cards.

In 2013 there were 2 more suicides caused by cyberbullying. 14 year old, Hannah Smith was found hanged. Her father said she had been sent abusive messages on social networking site, Ask.fm. Just a month ago, a 12 year old girl jumped to her death from an abandoned cement factory tower in Florida. She was picked on for months by as many as 15 girls through online message boards and texts.

The big question now is: Is it possible to stop cyberbullying and how should we do that?

Sources:

http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-cyber-bullying
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/24364361
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/15/cyberbullying-parents-internet-guide/2988651/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/15/florida-bullying-arrest-lakeland-suicide/2986079/

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