Since Mark Zuckerberg announced a drastic change in Meta’s content policies, Instagram users have reported an increase in content considered “disturbing” on the platform.
Internet users have reported receiving recommendations for content featuring extreme violence and AI-generated images of bizarre subjects, even though they had not interacted with such posts on the platform.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Kelly Takasu, 36, explained that she had received strange video recommendations after searching for content related to breastfeeding.
After that, she began receiving recommended content of an extremely bizarre nature, such as videos of elderly women surrounded by babies and AI-generated clips of hybrid babies between humans and pandas.
“I noticed I had received a strange recommendation on Reels and ended up watching it for too long. After that, Instagram started showing me more and more bizarre content,” Takasu told the newspaper.
She then had to reset Instagram’s recommendations to stop receiving this type of content. This kind of strange post can still have a negative impact on children and teenagers.
Courtney, a mother of a 17-year-old boy, shared that her son had seen videos of murders, mutilated bodies, and even a woman giving birth on the social network. “He saw executions and people dying in accidents. It was like an attack on their minds,” she revealed.
In a statement, Meta explained that the recommendation of such content was caused by a system error, which they said has now been fixed. “We apologize for the mistake,” said Erin Logan, a spokesperson for the company.
Photo and video: Pixabay. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
