The feature that Instagram implemented to limit the spread of fake news has been flagging photoshopped images as false information. In December of last year, Instagram rolled out a false information” warning system to the platform. The program would analyze things posted to the app based on user reporting and its own sensors and after sending things it deems suspicious to independent fact-checkers, puts up a warning that the information may be false.
Users will see the image with a massive blur on it and an option to know why the image was deemed false. When clicked, the names of fact-checkers and their sources will appear. These can be links to other sites or material that disproves it or simple observations like acknowledging an image has been manipulated. At the time, there was worry over whether or not this would affect photographers. Instagram is a photo and video sharing site and is a bastion for artistic photography. Photo manipulation is used to touch up images to make them more pleasing to the eye or for other creative purposes. The latest development sounds like the system has been erroneously censoring these images.
Professional photographer Toby Harriman brought the issue to attention in a post on January 11th, writing “Looks like Instagram x Facebook will star tagging fake photos/digital art. Probably only if that art is listed on a false checker site? Or if the IG page is listed as media vs artist? It’s interesting to see and curious if it’s a bit too far.” His app had censored an image of a mountain range that was manipulated to be rainbow-colored. Instagram’s fact-checkers had marked the image as false.
Instagram’s Faulty Fact-Checking Threatens Photographers
The intensions behind Instagram’s fact-checker are admirable. The implementation of the fact-checking system was intended to fight fake information ahead of the US 2020 election cycle. It’s unfortunate that digital artists have been caught in the fact checker’s crosshairs. The system is also a multi-leveled one that relies on both an automated system, user input, and independent fact-checkers.
The structure of Instagram’s system makes it hard to apply a quick fix to it. Instagram could allow users to appeal to the system for their images to be marked as art and not propaganda, but that opens it up to the question of what art is. An artist could doctor an image of a politician and call it a satirical image, but any viewer could come along and mistake it for truth. Either way, the removal of artists from circulation impacts the user base in a way that could dissuade people from using the platform.
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Source: Toby Harriman / Facebook
