
Instagram prioritizes photos of scantily-clad men and women - n_kb
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/instagram-algorithm-nudity/
======
zxcmx
It seems like the possibility that photos-of-undress are promoted by organic
engagement is not discussed? (aka people seem to be clicking on this).

Confession: this is the first thing that sprang to mind for me. Not that
algorithms suck or companies suck (though both of those are true) but that
_people_ suck.

~~~
n_kb
Of course it is. I'd even say that what we found is probably similar to the
issue of offensive suggestions by search engines. A minority of Instagram
users see the platform as a free source of soft porn images and their behavior
is probably picked up by ML systems, amplified, and pictures of nudity are
pushed for all users, in a vicious cycle. Just like search engines spread far-
right conspiracies by suggesting them to millions of users after a few
thousands searched for them.

~~~
P-ala-din
but as opposed to "offensive suggestions", there is nothing wrong with
showing-skin.

~~~
n_kb
Unless your don't want to, but you are obliged to use IG because your business
focuses on a demographic on which IG has a monopoly (the 15-25 demographics in
the EU).

~~~
bzb3
I'm sure there are worse jobs than using Instagram

~~~
square_usual
There's a difference between using Instagram and having to wear a Bikini on
Instagram even if you don't want to.

~~~
bzb3
Nothing worse than owning a car repair shop and having to force your mechanics
to wear a bikini for Instagram ads. Imagine having to have _that_ conversation
with a bunch of short tempered hairy dudes

------
viburnum
Instagram’s explore tab has learned that I like pictures of English gardens.
It works amazingly well. But if I refresh too often, it seems to run out of
new garden photos and just shows hot young women and luxury cars instead (I’m
not interested in either). I don’t know if it’s the algorithm or a deliberate
choice but it’s gross either way.

~~~
Tepix
It's the same with Pinterest for me by the way.

It shows the pictures I'm interested in and when it runs out of them it starts
showing bikini models and cars.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
To be fair, that's probably the two largest centroids of any reduced dimension
space they've estimated to rank photos.

------
peer2pay
> While our results show that male and female content creators are forced to
> show skin in similar ways if they want to reach their audience, the effect
> could be larger for females, and be considered a discrimination of female
> entrepreneurs.

Overall this article strikes me as a large collection of pseudo-science but
this sentence baffles me the most. Is the author arguing against their own
conclusions?

~~~
square_usual
I don't disagree about the style/tone of the article but this conclusion is
borne out by their own data:

> Posts that contained pictures of women in undergarment or bikini were 54%
> more likely to appear in the newsfeed of our volunteers. Posts containing
> pictures of bare chested men were 28% more likely to be shown.

The effect is clearly larger for women, and if you have no problems with their
data I don't think it is a reach to assume it disadvantages female
entrepreneurs more than male entrepreneurs, especially given that in many
cultures the pressure to dress modestly is stronger on women than on men.

~~~
Firadeoclus
> The effect is clearly larger for women

I don't think it's that simple, given that their data show both the share of
posts posted and shown as lower for women.

And there has to be a non-linear effect from increasing the share of posts
posted with nudity, given that if it was, say, 66% then it would be impossible
to boost that by 54%.

------
rydre
This is very true. As a early 20s guy, I don't follow a single celeb who is a
woman, the only women I follow are women of my family/girlfriends, and then it
still shows me unknown barely clothed women and makes me embarrassed when I
use it in public. I've never even liked a picture once, of a woman who is semi
nude, because its just not my thing and I don't want to contribute to the
degradation of society.

Therefore all I use Instagram for is keep up with friends and family, share
vacation photos, not to view unknown celebs/people I don't care about.

I would be very happy if they stopped trying to show me trash.

------
throwaway753647
I find myself realizing that as I clicked on the post, I was hoping it would
include example pictures of attractive instagram models. I expect the results
may be predominantly a reflection of human nature...

------
xiaodai
Hmm, if ppl press like on those photos more, isn't the algorithm just
faithfull reproducing human preference on average? Why say instagram is
prioritising? Makes it sound like Instagram. Is sentient.

------
trashburger
Wow, a social media network the average Joe visits promotes stuff the average
Joe might enjoy. How is this news? Any sane algorithm would tailor posts'
visibility to the lowest common denominator, and that's what IG seems to do
here. I don't even use IG and it makes sense.

------
v4dok
Anecdotal: My explore feed has been 100% populated by semi-naked women for a
long time. I realized that it could lead to some embarrassing moments when my
friends would see it and I decided to change the feed. However, I was clicking
on them so it as at least somewhat organic. The issue was, that since it was
the ONLY thing on my feed, after some time I also had no option.

At some point a couple of months ago I decided that I wanted to change it. So
I started to consciously like and follow hashtags and people around memes,
standup, art and sports.

Now, I like primarily meme pictures and funny pieces and never on any semi-
naked model. However, my feed has changed to a 80-20 (models-memes). I still
think that there is some Instagram push there, since obviously, my preferences
on content have changed, but the algorithm barely gave a damn.

------
Causality1
Do the detailed results of the study contain all the data for the participants
interests?

 _And if Instagram personalized the newsfeed of each user according to their
personal tastes, the diversity of posts in their newsfeeds should be skewed in
a different way for each user_

That seems like a wild underestimation of how much a group of 24 Instagram
users choose to look at sexy pictures over other topics. "Instagram behaves as
if people are thirty percent more interested in sex than any other topic"
frankly seems low.

~~~
Tade0
It's probably somewhat lowered by the other provider of sexual imagery, namely
porn.

------
ctchocula
The website is down, but can still be read using google cache:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Dk1y0u...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Dk1y0uZe5sMJ:https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/instagram-
algorithm-nudity/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
belval
That title (not the HN one, the article one) is so editorialized that I doubt
the credibility of the analysis. It feels like something people would think
about and then find data to validate their perception.

As unfortunate (is it though?) as it might be, people do like that content and
it creates engagement with the platform. I see it as business as usual for
social media.

------
akeck
If you tap on a pic in the explore feed, and then tap the three dots in the
upper right hand corner of the pic, and then tap "Not Interested", it sends a
strong signal to the recommendation algorithm. After doing this a few times on
similar pics, you will generally not see that category of picture in your
feed.

------
prawn
You used to be able to click attractive profiles in the sidebar of LinkedIn to
successively attain a sidebar that was full of model-looking people. I wish
the around-the-network sidebar for Stack Exchange worked like that but
eventually gave you an absolutely insane list of questions.

------
dash2
Bears prioritize forest locations for toilets

------
regularfry
There's a catch-22 here. Instagram will nuke accounts of models who make their
money from appearing scantily-clad in photos. Damned if you do, damned if you
don't.

------
neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200615070729/https://algorithm...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200615070729/https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/instagram-
algorithm-nudity/)

[https://archive.vn/dcUPd](https://archive.vn/dcUPd)

------
manigandham
This seems rather thin on describing the feeds that these users are following.
How "diverse" are they? What's that even mean? Did they check which posts are
getting the most interactions (by their other followers)?

Unless these posts are completely new, how can they know that this isn't
Instagram prioritizing the posts that already have the most engagement
organically?

~~~
n_kb
We didn't have enough data to test these hypotheses. If more people contribute
their data, we'll be able to test that:
[https://algorithmwatch.org/en/instagram-
algorithm/](https://algorithmwatch.org/en/instagram-algorithm/)

~~~
manigandham
That's a major missing hypothesis that seriously undermines your conclusion.

Why do you need me to share data at all? Just create brand new accounts and
test what they see in a more controlled manner. Then you'll be able to test
what's recommended from the same accounts over time while building any
specific profiles yourself.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
That's against FB's and IG's terms of service, so as an investigative outlet,
they can't really do that and then promote the results.

------
EwanToo
The source google doc at
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L7A5hmskm3Y3huSXHNtIIoiV...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L7A5hmskm3Y3huSXHNtIIoiVijHD3dkDqubff4Yvkg8/edit#)
is very informative while the website is down

------
junyoon
This is a sample size of one but I think I may have helped the algorithm learn
this behaviour

------
nihil75
This research is flawed as they have no way of telling what's the ratio of
scantly-clad vs. dressed is in the entire collection of Instagram.

It could be that there's just a higher ratio of these types of images.

------
lightgreen
They analyzed images with “Google Vision API”, but did not make even an
attempt to correlate with number of likes, comments etc. What a waste of time
in so-called investigation.

------
otabdeveloper4
A social network for promoting scantily-clad women prioritizes photos of
scantily-clad women?

You don't say.

------
rattyc
And I dread to think what the tiktok algorithm prioritises.

~~~
square_usual
Algorithm? Tiktok puts its hands on the scale deliberately:
[https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-
us...](https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-
discrimination/)

------
watwut
> the label “beauty”, for instance, was only returned for females

Males just dont look good, or something.

Edit: as someone noted before, my point was not that that men look badly. More
that it is ridiculous bias I did not even noticed before.

~~~
isoprophlex
People disagreeing with this comment: please consider what the post is trying
to highlight.

There's an apparent asymmetry in how imagery of females is perceived, vs.
similarly posing males. Commercials employing 'sex sells' tactics are still
biased towards using the female sex to sell. Reddits' r/gonewild and offshoots
is pretty huge, and filled with females. This is a truism.

The label 'beauty' being only returned for females highlights this asymmetry.
There is something deeply absurd about this: on a first order approximation,
~50% of the population should be attracted to males. To me personally it is
enlightening to see how 'smart' data driven systems expose the systemic biases
in our society.

~~~
watwut
Yes, that was my point. Not that I think males look ugly, I don't. More that
beauty being female only is a clear example of bias. I have seen similar bias
with the word "elegant" exactly today. It was prompt in the list of photos and
there was exactly one guy and many women in result.

> To me personally it is enlightening to see how 'smart' data driven systems
> expose the systemic biases in our society.

I also think that they to make that systemic bias bigger. Like, if there is
small difference between the gender of elegant in real life, the algorithm
will make it higher. The human bias in worst as amplifier too, but I find
algorithmic harder to control and even worst in amplifying effect.

------
briandilley
I don't even need to read the article to know that a more accurate title would
be: 'Undress or fail: Instagrams user patterns strong-arms users into showing
skin' or the classic 'Sex Sells'

~~~
watwut
Not really. It is about algorithm picking up and showing some pictures more
regardless of personal taste of individual user or content creator

> If Instagram were not mingling with the algorithm, the diversity of posts in
> the newsfeed of users should match the diversity of the posts by the content
> creators they follow. And if Instagram personalized the newsfeed of each
> user according to their personal tastes, the diversity of posts in their
> newsfeeds should be skewed in a different way for each user. This is not
> what we found.

So it is more of algorithm amplifying effect that exists in general in much
smaller effect and pushing people toward aesthetic that would not be
"naturally" their preferred thing to look at or produce.

