This research is flawed as they have no way of telling what's the ratio of scantly-clad vs. dressed is in the entire collection of Instagram.
It could be that there's just a higher ratio of these types of images.
Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
71–80 of 90 posts
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#72It 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?
[deleted]
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#73> the label “beauty”, for instance, was only returned for females Males just dont look good, or something. Edit: as someone noted before, my point was not that that men look badly. More that it is ridiculous bias I did not even noticed before.
As a non-native English speaker I wonder — is it common to call a man "beautiful" in reference to his looks?
I don't find it common for humans in general, with exception of Trump? It is kind of not not how people normally talk.
Bun this exact day I have seen similar phenomenon with "elegant". Search for elegant ended with exactly one guy and a lot of young women with dresses, most of them brides. Elegant is commonly used for good looking men.
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody is "obliged" to use it. You can also buy ads if you want to show your posts to people, like any other business does.
To be fair, the linked article does suggest that this effect occurs for ads as well as organic posts.
Where's the suggestion that it applies to ads? The only coverage is 2 un-sourced instances of the ad creative review algorithm falsely flagging the content.
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#75It 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.
While it's probably based on engagement, it's still a flaw of the algorithms I feel. Just because other people engages more with the content, doesn't mean it's the correct content for a given hashtag / following. For instance, I mostly follow cycling and running stuff on IG. The suggestions / explore feed is therefore full of women in short running shorts and bicycle jerseys with the zipper down. It's not really that…
Have you tried the GCN app for browsing cycling photos?
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#76It 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…
How confident are you that Instagram’s algorithm isn’t just optimizing for that particular user? And that it’s just that most users of Instagram seem to engage with scantily clad photos more than other photos?
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#77> the label “beauty”, for instance, was only returned for females Males just dont look good, or something. Edit: as someone noted before, my point was not that that men look badly. More that it is ridiculous bias I did not even noticed before.
People disagreeing with this comment: please consider what the post is trying to highlight. There's an apparent asymmetry in how imagery of females is perceived, vs. similarly posing males. Commercials employing 'sex sells' tactics are still biased towards using the female sex to sell. Reddits' r/gonewild and offshoots is pretty huge, and filled with females. This is a truism. The label 'beauty' being only returned f…
Also most women find most men unattractive or average looking. Most men find most women average looking or attractive.
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#78Earlier 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…
> - Does Instagram prioritize scantily-clad photos of attractive people over scantily-clad photos of relatively less-attractive people?
If my theory of "It's not Instagram that prioritizes attractive people, people prioritize attractive people" is right, then yes, less attractive people are less attractive and therefore less prioritized.
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it's probably based on engagement, it's still a flaw of the algorithms I feel. Just because other people engages more with the content, doesn't mean it's the correct content for a given hashtag / following. For instance, I mostly follow cycling and running stuff on IG. The suggestions / explore feed is therefore full of women in short running shorts and bicycle jerseys with the zipper down. It's not really that…
Have you tried the GCN app for browsing cycling photos?
Didn't know they had their own app. I regularly watch them and the triathlon version on YouTube, so will check it out, thanks.
Re: Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women
#80> the label “beauty”, for instance, was only returned for females Males just dont look good, or something. Edit: as someone noted before, my point was not that that men look badly. More that it is ridiculous bias I did not even noticed before.
As a non-native English speaker I wonder — is it common to call a man "beautiful" in reference to his looks?
It's rare. To me, it's not just a synonym for "handsome", but rather implies a certain kind of elegant good looks. The male characters in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are the first example that springs to mind.