Meta's Instagram failed to curtail hate speech against women politicians, report says

Meta Platforms' Instagram failed to remove abusive comments aimed at female politicians who are potential candidates for the 2024 US elections, according to a report by the non-profit Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) on Aug 14.

The report analysed over half a million comments on Instagram posts by five Democratic and five Republican women politicians, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice-President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

CCDH flagged over 20,000 comments as "toxic", with 1,000 of these comments containing sexist and racist abuse, as well as death and rape threats. Instagram left up 93 per cent of the harmful comments even after breaching the platform's standards.

In response to the report, Meta said it has tools in place for users to control comments on their posts, including filtering out offencive comments, phrases or emojis.

"We will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates our policies," said Cindy Southworth, head of women's safety at Meta.

In its analysis of the 2020 US election, the CCDH report found that women of colour were more likely to be targets of sexist and racist abuse.

The rise of online abuse against women politicians has drawn criticism from advocacy groups.

It also highlighted how social media algorithms that prioritise emotional content and engagement can inadvertently amplify this abuse, a feature that politicians often leverage to boost their engagement rates.

This underscores the role social media platforms and their algorithms play in the propagation of online abuse, a problem that extends beyond the political sphere and affects millions of users worldwide.

The report urged social media platforms to enforce their safety guidelines more effectively and take decisive action against targeted online abuse.

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