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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

#41

Post by toyg »

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…

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

I would bet the latter. Why go to the trouble of analysing difficult stuff about body structure, when you can just let users "decide".

I think we should formulate a law, something like "every internet imageboard, if left to user-moderation, will eventually turn into pr0n".

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

#42

Post by gdy »

ctchocula wrote: post #17
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?

And who gets to decide what is 'better'?

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

#43

Post by Tade0 »

Causality1 wrote: post #20

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 beh…

It's probably somewhat lowered by the other provider of sexual imagery, namely porn.

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

#46

Post by rydre »

This is very true. As a early 20s guy, I don't follow a single celeb who is a woman, the only women I follow are women of my family/girlfriends, and then it still shows me unknown barely clothed women and makes me embarrassed when I use it in public. I've never even liked a picture once, of a woman who is semi nude, because its just not my thing and I don't want to contribute to the degradation of society.

Therefore all I use Instagram for is keep up with friends and family, share vacation photos, not to view unknown celebs/people I don't care about.

I would be very happy if they stopped trying to show me trash.

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

#47

Post by viburnum »

Instagram’s explore tab has learned that I like pictures of English gardens. It works amazingly well. But if I refresh too often, it seems to run out of new garden photos and just shows hot young women and luxury cars instead (I’m not interested in either). I don’t know if it’s the algorithm or a deliberate choice but it’s gross either way.

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

#49

Post by n_kb »

toyg wrote: post #41
waterhouse wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Is the prioritization based on a machine analysis of the photo, or on the response of earlier users to the photo? I would bet the latter. Why go to the trouble of analysing difficult stuff about body structure, when you can just let users "decide". I think we should formulate a law, something like "every internet imageboard, if left to user-moderation, will eventually turn into pr0n".

It's likely that FB uses user response to posts to decide how to prioritize them. However, several patents describe systems where they analyze (using CV) and make decision on the importance of pictures before they are published.

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

#50

Post by [deleted] »

n_kb wrote: post #37
peer2pay wrote: post #31

> While our results show that male and female content creators are forced to show skin in similar ways if they want to reach their audience, the effect could be larger for females, and be considered a discrimination of female entrepreneurs. Overall this article strikes me as a large collection of pseudo-science but this sentence baffles me the most. Is the author arguing against their own conclusions?

I think it's called "subtlety" but I'm no native speaker.

[deleted]
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