Hern Tan
Tired of scrolling through your Explore and hashtag feed and seeing vacation images that are somehow… too perfect? It seems that Instagram’s staff are as well, as they have included digitally manipulated images in their campaign to quell the spread of fake information.
While the new policies were intended more to crack down on online propaganda and misinformation, the new features are making use of third-party fact-checkers who are now targeting ‘heavily doctored’ images by photographers and digital artists by labelling them as false information.
Based on initial reports from affected photographers, it seems that their photos are being slapped with restrictions from overly-zealous viewers who report their work to these fact-checking sites, which lack the ability to recognise between photo-based fake news and the (otherwise harmless) heavily manipulated digital photo.
Image credit: Instagram
In December last year, Instagram announced that the “False Information” warning and filters to the platform would combine both user reporting and algorithms to flag suspected content for review. More importantly, accounts that are repeat offenders for spreading fake news will be blocked from the Explore and hashtag pages permanently.
On one hand, this might be a good thing for people sick of seeing triple rainbows over rolling Technicolor hills, and might hopefully stop the propagation of absurd images that just add to our confusion of what is reality.
Taken too far though, this might signal the end for Instagram as a platform for artists and the such who are into creating heavily doctored images, no matter what their intentions may be, as this move will severely limit the visibility of their work on the platform.
Time to jump ship to Tumblr, perhaps?
Image credit: Toby Harriman
