DIGITAL LIFE

Instagram algorithm is driving nude photos

"State of nudity" or "level of nudity", this criterion is an integral part of the job score calculated by the Instagram algorithm that decides the destination of your photo. According to the French publication Mediapart, Instagram favors certain naked content, creating a real blackmail - or an implicit prize - for nudity.
In a survey released on Monday, June 15, Mediapart addresses an alleged bias in the Instagram algorithm that favors photos containing a certain degree of nudity over other less emphasized content.
The site uses an algorithm based on a patent registered by two Facebook engineers (owner of Instagram since 2012) in 2015, entitled "Feature-extraction-based image scoring". .
Thus, this image index based on resource extraction allows Instagram's algorithm to calculate a post's engagement score based on its potential to generate interest among users and be shared by them.
In the body of the text of this patent, it is detailed that the Notation API can extract certain "resources" from the multimedia content published on Instagram, such as objects, products and faces. But you can also estimate a person's gender or ethnicity, as well as the "state of nudity" or "level of nudity".
"The API can assess the level of nudity of people in an image by detecting bands of specific colors, identified as skin tones," says the document analyzed by Mediapart. The site asked Instagram about the use of these levels of nudity on social media, but the company refused to answer these questions, simply explaining to Mediapart that: "it organizes posts in news feeds according to tracked and appreciated accounts, and not according to arbitrary criteria such as the presence of a bathing suit ".
We can also interpret and consider that Instagram is using this nudity metadata in a post to detect and remove pornographic content, or simply overly explicit posts, as may have happened in the past. But then, why find the mention of "nudity level" in the listed criteria to calculate a post's commitment rate?
In the face of the Instagram block, Mediapart tried to force its reasoning, operating a "reverse engineering" of the algorithm on a smaller scale. With financial support from the European Data Journalism Network and Algorithm Watch, statistician Kira Schacht and developer Édouard Richard, Mediapart analyzed 1,737 publications containing 2,400 images posted on Instagram between February and May 2020 and calculated their exposure rate.
Mediapart asked 26 volunteers to install an extension on their browser and follow a selection of 37 people (including 14 men) from 12 different countries. Of the 2,400 photos analyzed between February and May, 362, or 21%, represented naked bodies. However, these photos represented 30% of the total mass of the photos shown.
Details of your study results are available for free here. This means that, although "naked" content is in the minority in the sample sent to the volunteer panel, Instagram's algorithm has placed it more prominently on users' timelines.
Mediapart's investigation is not without its gaps. The testimonies of the influencers mentioned at the beginning of the article are anonymized and do not constitute any tangible evidence. The study carried out by Mediapart that I just mentioned is also, by the admission of the site, imperfect, because it should have been carried out on a larger scale.
However, Mediapart results show that a photo of a woman in panties or a bathing suit is shown 1.6 times more than a photo of her wearing. For a man, the rate is 1.3. If we can't talk about blackmail, we can at least question the very paradoxical position that platforms like Instagram, but also YouTube and Twitch, have on nudity.
It is a danger for advertisers to buy advertising space in the face of this so-called sensitive content, but it is also an essential element of public involvement and, therefore, of the revenues of the platform and its "partner" influencers. 

Source: Antoine Engels