Instagram’s algorithm ‘gives more priority’ to these photos

If you are on Instagram and would’ve noticed certain ‘hot’ photos of men or women in your Explore feed then don’t overthink about how they landed there. As per researchers, Instagram prioritises photos of scantily-clad men and women. According to a report by The Next Web, the investigation was conducted by European Data Journalism Network and AlgorithmWatch. The researchers asked 26 volunteers to install a browser add-on and follow a selection of professional content creators.
About 2,400 photos, were analysed and researchers found that of these posts, 362, or 21%, were recognised by a computer program as containing pictures showing women in bikinis or underwear, or bare chested men. “It is likely that Instagram’s algorithm favours nudity in general, but that personalisation, or other factors, limits this effect for some users,” said the researchers in a blog post.
The researchers did reach out to Facebook but didn’t get answers to specific questions. However, Facebook did issue and statement and termed the research as ‘flawed’. “This research is flawed in a number of ways and shows a misunderstanding of how Instagram works.