Instagram's moderation issues caused by human error, not AI
What's the story
Instagram has been recently struggling with a number of moderation issues, resulting in users losing access to their accounts and posts disappearing.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, addressed these concerns on Friday.
He revealed the problems weren't due to faulty artificial intelligence (AI) systems as many initially suspected, but were caused by errors made by human moderators.
Issue clarification
Mosseri acknowledges lack of context in content moderation
Mosseri clarified that the issues arose from content reviewers making decisions without enough context on how conversations unfolded.
He acknowledged this oversight in a post on Threads, saying that the errors were due to "people, not automated systems."
The company is now working to fix these issues so that reviewers can make better-informed decisions and reduce errors.
Technical glitch
Tool malfunction contributed to moderation issues
Mosseri further explained a tool designed to provide context for reviewers had malfunctioned, resulting in insufficient information being displayed. "That's on us," he admitted.
However, this explanation doesn't fully account for all the user complaints, like accounts being wrongly identified as belonging to users under 13 years old and subsequently deactivated.
The Verge reported that even after users verified their age with ID, their accounts remained inactive.
Ongoing investigation
Instagram continues to investigate other user complaints
In a statement to TechCrunch, Instagram admitted that not all the issues users experienced were due to human moderators' mistakes.
The company also noted the tool malfunction and said issues like flagging users as underage are still under investigation.
It remains to be seen if Instagram will give a detailed explanation for all these issues, as multiple factors could be at play.
User impact
User engagement and follower growth affected
The moderation issues have also affected user engagement and follower growth.
Walt Mossberg, a former tech columnist for The Wall Street Journal, pointed out that his engagement on Threads had plummeted significantly.
Social media strategist Matt Navarra also reported facing moderation problems, and noticed that users were seeing their follower growth rate and engagement "falling off a cliff."