Yesterday, a group of artists, pole dancers, sex workers, allies, LBTQIA+ people and more gathered outside of Instagram’s London HQ for a dance party/ protest – only to be ignored by Insta. In the past month or so, more news have come out about Instagram and Facebook’s moderation techniques, EveryBODYVisible has come back from the Christmas holidays and I have spoken at an algorithm bias conference at Somerset House where I presented experiences from our campaign and my recommendations for fairer moderation. AFH really opened my mind to fantastic studies and huge issues with algorithmic moderation and regulation, so I thought I’d share some of these news and resources with you, together with others gathered in the past few months, to raise some important questions that, sadly, the platform still refuses to answer.

Picture by: Angela Christofilou

Instagram Dance Party By @katsandcrows

I’m writing this while still reeling from yesterday’s dance party outside Facebook and Instagram’s London HQ, organised by sex worker, performer and activist Rebecca Crow – aka @katsandcrows – bringing together sex workers, pole dancers, athletes, performers, LGBTQIA+ people, people of colour, allies and many more.

The dance party was an occasion to protest against IG’s unfair moderation the only way we know how: getting our heels on and dancing to some hits. We had some very interesting covers…

Side To Side – The Dance Party Version

It was so fantastic to meet likeminded people from all walks of life and to hear their incredible stories. We all came from different backgrounds, but we were united by the fact that up until now, Instagram had been a tool for empowerment, but that empowerment is slowly being taken away by IG’s current moderation process and community guidelines. I heard some heart-warming story of how people incorporate sex positivity and body positivity within their parenting, or stories of people in a wheelchair that came to support sex workers for the positive impact they had on their lives.

What we didn’t hear, unfortunately, was Instagram’s voice. They didn’t show up at all, they didn’t let us in for a meeting and, apparently, they snuck out the backdoor to prevent being locked in like last time Rebecca organised a protest. Back then, apparently, security barricaded IG employees into the building and they weren’t allowed to leave even after working hours. This time, they just remained silent and ignored us. Kinda like they do when we ask for clarity on how their algorithms work.

Picture by: Maria Evrenos

I was totally mind-blown to see people I didn’t know carry EveryBODYVisible sign and shout “Everybodyvisible” among the protesting chants. We’ve amassed a lot of following and media coverage in the past few months, but seeing that offline, with my own eyes, really was something.

Picture by: Angela Christofilou

Here’s Rebecca talking to EveryBODYVisible about the current state of Instagram’s moderation and how it affects a variety of communities. She shares some worrying facts about how celebrities’ accounts are completely whitelisted – even if their aesthetic is what Instagram would ban on a non-famous profile – and about how hackers have been exploiting ‘sexy’ IG account that have been banned.

The Latest In Instagram Moderation World

This month, former deputy PM Sir Nick Clegg said Facebook is failing to eradicate harmful content because it’s too big, prompting charities to call for the Government to “urgently” set up an online watchdog to protect children.

At around the same time, Facebook announced they’ll be hiring 1,000 more people in the UK to deal with harmful content. The BBC wrote that: “Pressure has been growing on social media firms to remove posts promoting self-harm and political extremism.” It remains to be seen how the new hires will approach nudity.

January was a whirlwind in Internet moderation world. As XBIZ reports, porn performer Alana Evans’ IG profile was removed in error after a user posted harassing comments her posts. The user has since been removed from the platform and Evans’ account has been restored. Instagram issued an official apology to Evans.

“In the course of this investigation, we mistakenly disabled Alana’s Instagram account,” Instagram Communications Officer Stephanie Otway told XBIZ. “We sincerely apologise to Alana for this error, and we’ve taken steps to protect her account from future mistakes like this.” Instagram Communications Officer Stephanie Otway

Less related to nudity but still along the lines of Instagram’s ghosting of its users, according to a Vice article found that hacked Instagram influencers have to rely on hackers. Referring to internal documents obtained by the Motherboard team, they write:

Victims say that Instagram’s process for recovering accounts is so cumbersome that they’ve had to rely on third-party social media experts and, in some cases, white-hat hackers to help them regain access while Instagram itself was largely silent. Vice

It seems like Alana has made some progress on the other side of the Atlantic though, as this Adult Performers Actors Guild tweet seems to show. Hopefully IG begin listening to other people affected as well.

Good afternoon! @instagram update! After the chaos of last week, I asked if IG would accept a new list of deleted accounts to go through and hopefully reinstate…. and they agreed! I’ll be posting full details and instructions shortly! AE — Adult Performers Actors Guild (@APAGunion) January 30, 2020

Academics and Moderation: Slaves To The Algorithm?

But the news aren’t the only source examining Instagram’s unresponsiveness towards its audiences. On January 17th, I spoke at Algorithms For Her, a conference at King’s College London that focused on Algorithm Bias, presenting the work we did through EveryBODYVisible and sharing my recommendations for fairer moderation. Thanks to the event, I was able to meet a variety of inspiring academics that shared some of their work with me. Sadly, their work proves our point: we know almost nothing about Facebook and Instagram’s moderation techniques, and their lack of clarity is dangerous and damaging to their users.

In a new article published in the UNSW Law Journal, researchers Alice Witt, Nicolas Suzor and Anna Huggins sample 4,944 like images depicting women’s bodies to see how they were moderated on Instagram. They found that up to 22 per cent of images are potentially false positives — “images that do not appear to violate Instagram’s content policies and were removed from the platform,” – arguing that this result is a “significant cause for concern” for users on the platform and for moderation in general.

The researchers write:

Content moderation refers to the processes through which platform executives and their moderators — whether humans, artificial intelligence systems or both — set, maintain and enforce the bounds of ‘appropriate’ content based on many factors, including platform-specific rules, cultural norms or legal obligations. We argue that decisions around the appropriateness of content are ultimately regulatory decisions in the way that they attempt to influence or control the types of content we see and how and when we see it. Alice Witt, Nicolas Suzor and Anna Huggins

As if this were not enough, Sophie Bishop’s article shows how constant changes in social media algorithms leave users to rely on ‘algorithm experts’ that share unscientific information and, ultimately, can profit from their need to reach new users. The article focuses on YouTube’s algorithm, but it can easily be applied to Instagram, further proving how damaging nebulous algorithms can be to social media users whose livelihood is based on engagement on these platforms.

Instagram Declined To Comment On Pretty Much Anything

I sent my usual contacts at Instagram’s press office some very specific questions about how their algorithms work, following on from recent news stories and announcements. They declined to comment – not sure if I’ve pissed them right off with the work we’ve been doing at EveryBODYVisible (which would be sad, as dialogue is what we’re asking for) or if they legit don’t know the answers. Her were my questions – guess they will go unanswered for a while…

You are recruiting thousands more people to deal with harmful content online here in London. How will that affect women, sex workers, educators, performers, people of colour, LGBTQIA+ folks and athletes? How will the new hires work with content containing nudity on Facebook and Instagram? How many people / reports does it take for a profile to be taken down? Incel Omid claimed to have taken down a porn star’s account this month, while dancers, performers and pole instructors are having a variety of their videos removed. What can users do when they feel they are being targeted on the platform? Can you clearly define harmful content in terms of nudity? Are you planning on revisiting your female nipple ban? How is age-gating working on Instagram and what are your experiences with this new feature so far?

What Can We Do About It?

Keep protesting.

Keep spreading the word about the lack of equality on social media platforms.

Keep ‘stalking’ your favourite creators, activists, athletes, sex workers etc and like their posts, comment on them, save them, boost their engagement.

If you’ve got a platform, a voice, some leverage, use it to support people who are being silenced. Sometimes, even a social media post can go a long way. When it’s not censored, that is.

Here’s some insightful and helpful posts by EveryBODYVisible in case you’re trying to understand or hack the algorithm.

For now, over and out.

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