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Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

algorithmwatch.org

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Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#11

Post by n_kb »

P-ala-din wrote: post #10
n_kb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is. I'd even say that what we found is probably similar to the issue of offensive suggestions by search engines. A minority of Instagram users see the platform as a free source of soft porn images and their behavior is probably picked up by ML systems, amplified, and pictures of nudity are pushed for all users, in a vicious cycle. Just like search engines spread far-right conspiracies by suggesting them…

but as opposed to "offensive suggestions", there is nothing wrong with showing-skin.

Unless your don't want to, but you are obliged to use IG because your business focuses on a demographic on which IG has a monopoly (the 15-25 demographics in the EU).

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#13

Post by bzb3 »

zxcmx wrote: post #2

It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this). Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that people suck.

People suck because they go online to look at attractive people?

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#14

Post by waterhouse »

capableweb wrote: post #7
zxcmx wrote: post #2

It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this). Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that people suck.

That was my first idea too! Not that people suck (not sure why you must suck if you enjoy looking at good-looking people), but that it's organic. Instagram just prioritizes what people click on, and people are attracted to attractive people, so they click on that.

Follow-up questions:

- Does Instagram prioritize scantily-clad photos of attractive people over scantily-clad photos of relatively less-attractive people?

- Is the prioritization based on a machine analysis of the photo, or on the response of earlier users to the photo?

- "While [the skew towards nudity] was consistent and apparent for most volunteers, a small minority were served posts that better reflected the diversity published by content creators." Are the majority people who have clicked on plenty of attractive scantily-clad photos? Are the minority people who have been presented with such and avoided clicking them?

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#15

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

zxcmx wrote: post #2

It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this). Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that people suck.

The article points to a Facebook patent for an "engagement metric" created at time of posting (that is, before user interaction) which specifically calls out "state of undress" as a factor to consider:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H....

...and this metric is used to determine what gets shown in people's feeds.

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#16

Post by bzb3 »

n_kb wrote: post #11
P-ala-din wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but as opposed to "offensive suggestions", there is nothing wrong with showing-skin.

Unless your don't want to, but you are obliged to use IG because your business focuses on a demographic on which IG has a monopoly (the 15-25 demographics in the EU).

I'm sure there are worse jobs than using Instagram

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#17

Post by ctchocula »

zxcmx wrote: post #2

It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this). Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that people suck.

This brought to mind a quote from Roger Ebert's book "Great Movies":

> Of all the arts, movies are the most powerful aid to empathy, and good ones make us into better people.

Even if people suck, could Instagram tune their recommendation algorithm into recommending content that made them into better people?

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#18

Post by [deleted] »

n_kb wrote: post #6
zxcmx wrote: post #2

It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this). Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that people suck.

Of course it is. I'd even say that what we found is probably similar to the issue of offensive suggestions by search engines. A minority of Instagram users see the platform as a free source of soft porn images and their behavior is probably picked up by ML systems, amplified, and pictures of nudity are pushed for all users, in a vicious cycle. Just like search engines spread far-right conspiracies by suggesting them…

[deleted]

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#19

Post by n_kb »

waterhouse wrote: post #14
capableweb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my first idea too! Not that people suck (not sure why you must suck if you enjoy looking at good-looking people), but that it's organic. Instagram just prioritizes what people click on, and people are attracted to attractive people, so they click on that.

Follow-up questions: - Does Instagram prioritize scantily-clad photos of attractive people over scantily-clad photos of relatively less-attractive people? - Is the prioritization based on a machine analysis of the photo, or on the response of earlier users to the photo? - "While [the skew towards nudity] was consistent and apparent for most volunteers, a small minority were served posts that better reflected the dive…

We didn't have enough data to test these hypotheses. If more people contribute their data, we'll be able to test that: https://algorithmwatch.org/en/instagram-algorithm/

Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women

#20

Post by Causality1 »

Do the detailed results of the study contain all the data for the participants interests?

And if Instagram personalized the newsfeed of each user according to their personal tastes, the diversity of posts in their newsfeeds should be skewed in a different way for each user

That seems like a wild underestimation of how much a group of 24 Instagram users choose to look at sexy pictures over other topics. "Instagram behaves as if people are thirty percent more interested in sex than any other topic" frankly seems low.

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