Instagram failed to address majority of comments targeting female politicians: Study

Instagram failed to act on more than 90 percent of abusive comments targeting female politicians that were identified and reported in a new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). 

The study, which collected 560,000 comments from the posts of female politicians on Instagram, used a machine learning model from Google and found that 1 in 25 comments was “highly likely” to be toxic.

Of 1,000 comments reported by the CCDH, 926 of them — or about 93 percent — remained on the platform after one week.  

More than a fifth of these comments were from “repeat offender” accounts that posted abuse at least twice during the six-month period that data was collected, the study found. 

“Instagram’s failure to uphold and enforce its community guidelines means the platform is failing women and, by extension, our society’s desire for equal opportunity and treatment for women,” CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed wrote in an introduction to the report. 

“The cacophony of hate speech, threats, and gendered abuse we find flooding the comment sections of prominent women politicians is united in one shared purpose: to push women out of political life,” Ahmed added. 

The study analyzed comments on posts from five Democratic women — Vice President Harris, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas)  —  and five Republican women —  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Maria Elvira Salazar (Fla.), Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.). 

According to the study, Instagram failed to act on about 92 percent of abusive comments aimed at Harris, who is now the Democratic presidential nominee after President Biden stepped aside last month.

The report urged Instagram to “invest in more trust and safety resources to properly uphold its community rules on hateful and violent content, with special consideration to the challenges faced by political and public figures.”

It also called on U.S. lawmakers to “hold social media companies accountable” by removing some of the protections that platforms are currently guaranteed by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

The Hill has reached out to Meta, Instagram’s parent company, for comment.