As elections approach, an advocacy group claims that Instagram is not effectively addressing hate speech directed towards female politicians.

• Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Instagram did not remove toxic comments aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris and other prominent female politicians.
• An analysis of 560,000 comments on Instagram posts from five Republican and five Democratic women politicians with high levels of engagement was the basis for the report on Wednesday.
• Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, stated to reporters that the increased focus on Elon Musk's X has led to the perception that Instagram is a secure platform for users.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Instagram has not successfully removed toxic comments targeting female politicians, including Vice President Kamala Harris, as the 2024 election approaches.

The non-profit advocacy group analyzed 560,000 comments on Instagram posts from five Republican and five Democratic women politicians with high levels of engagement to determine if large internet platforms are properly monitoring their sites for hate speech. The report was released on Wednesday.

The group monitored politicians such as Harris, the current Democratic presidential nominee, AOC, and Jasmine Crockett, in addition to Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.

Over 20,000 comments posted between Jan. 1 and June 7 were deemed "toxic" by Perspective AI content moderation tool, and a manual analysis revealed 1,000 comments that "clearly breached the terms of Instagram," said CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed during a media briefing on Tuesday.

"Ahmed stated during the briefing that our recommendations can be summarized as follows: Instagram must enforce policies to safeguard women in public life, and organizations must provide better support and best practices to women candidates who encounter abuse."

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has been criticized by lawmakers for not effectively tackling the spread of hateful content on its platforms and for its inability or unwillingness to take action against harmful behavior. Additionally, the attorney general of New Mexico has accused Meta in an ongoing lawsuit of failing to safeguard underage users from predators and sexual exploitation.

In past elections, Facebook has been a source of misinformation and harmful content targeting political candidates.

The report stated that some of the problematic comments captured by CCDH included statements such as "make rape legal" and "we don't want blacks around us no matter who they are." One comment directed at Harris mocked her racial background, while another comment called for her sexual assault by President Joe Biden.

The researchers from CCDH discovered 1,000 offensive comments on Instagram and used the platform's own reporting tools to flag them. However, a week later, Instagram had only acted on 74 of these comments, which is equivalent to a failure to act on 93% of them.

The company stated that it would review the examples that CCDH highlighted and remove any comments that violate its policies, but acknowledged that some content may be offensive but not in violation of its rules. Additionally, the company noted that the Google AI tool used by CCDH for part of its research may not always be accurate.

"Cindy Southworth, Meta's head of women's safety, stated that the company offers tools to control who can comment on posts, automatically filters out offensive content, and hides comments from people who don't follow them. She added that Meta works with hundreds of safety partners worldwide to improve policies, detection, and enforcement, and will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates their policies."

The report stated that one of the CCDH researchers received an Instagram notification indicating that the post did not violate the platform's guidelines, despite it being a racist comment directed at Harris. Additionally, over one-fifth of the 1,000 offensive comments flagged by the researchers originated from "repeat offenders" who had posted abusive content at least twice.

A report on Instagram was released several months after a California federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against CCDH by Elon Musk's X. The lawsuit was filed following the publication of research by the group indicating an increase in hate speech on the site after Musk's acquisition of Twitter.

Despite the negative attention directed towards Elon Musk, Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have avoided scrutiny, and there is a perception that Instagram is a safe platform to use, according to Ahmed.

"Ahmed stated that Mark Zuckerberg has been using a strategy of keeping a low profile while X has been taking the brunt of the anger towards the toxicity in public life and political discourse. The purpose of their investigation was to examine whether Facebook, the platform in question, is following up on its boasting about X's misfortunes with actions of its own."

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