Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

'It Took 10 Seconds For Instagram To Push Me Into an Anti-Vaxx Rabbit Hole' (vice.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the guided-by-algorithms dept.

eatmorekix quotes Vice: It only took around ten seconds. On Wednesday, I created a fresh Instagram account, and followed 'Beware the Needle', a user with 34,000 followers which posts a steady stream of anti-vaccination content. I also followed the user's "backup" account mentioned in its bio, the creator clearly aware that Instagram may soon ban them. Instagram's "Suggested for You" feature then recommended I follow other accounts, including "Vaccines are Genocide" and "Vaccine Truth." I followed the latter, and checked which accounts Instagram now thought would be a good fit for me: another 24 accounts that were either explicitly against vaccinations in their profile description, or that posted anti-vaccine content.

They included pseudo-scientists claiming that vaccines cause autism; accounts with tens of thousands of followers promising the "truth" around vaccinations through memes and images of misleading statistics, as well as individual mothers spouting the perceived, but false, dangers of vaccinating children against measles, polio, and other diseases.
"Instagram told Motherboard it will be looking at different ways to minimize these sorts of recommendations," the article reports, but "did not give a more specific timeframe for this change...."

"For the moment, however, Instagram remains a hot bed of easy to discover misinformation on vaccinations."

13 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Social media is the cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's endemic.

    1. Re:Social media is the cancer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Social media is always cancer. It is structurally cancer.

      You are a product of social media. You immediately tried to jam literally everything into a Ameri-centric left/right narrative. Your comment is typical of today's homogenized internet, but not the internet even 10 years ago.

  2. "Pushed you in..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sorry, it sounds like you deliberately went to this site for the sole purpose of finding this information yourself, so you could report on it for your publication.

    Am I missing something?

    1. Re:"Pushed you in..." by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Funny

      it's vice.. What did you expect? Real journalism?

    2. Re:"Pushed you in..." by sheramil · · Score: 4, Funny

      I went to 7:24 and it had Leia telling Darth Vader "The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this!"

  3. Well, all the platforms are quick to do that. by ruddk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was watching a video about the dismantling of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant and then one about Sellafield and then YouTube started recommending a bunch of related videos.
    And I know this is what happens, so I am leary about watching a conspiracy theory video or an anti-vax video just to laugh at them because I YouTube then will start recommending more of that bullshit instantly. :D

    --
    L'Idiot
    1. Re:Well, all the platforms are quick to do that. by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Part of the problem is that these services have too much blind faith in their ability to make predictions based upon incomplete knowledge. They REALLY need to come up with a way for users who end up pigeonholed and seeing endless recommendations for content to indicate, "Alright, enough already! I read a goddamn article about something while I was bored & taking a dump. Go back to recommending the kind of stuff I'm NORMALLY interested in."

      It's like the way TiVo used to be. A few years ago, my brother's family came down for a weekend. I recorded two episodes of a show for my niece & nephew. For the next 3 months, my Tivo was absolutely HELLBENT on endlessly recommending shows on Disney & Nickelodeon, despite the fact that I had about 40 open-ended scheduled recordings for shows that were about as close to being polar opposites of Disney & Nickelodeon kids' shows as you can get. It's like their algorithm said, "Oh, JOY!!!! Someone who now has small kids!!!! Now they're ensnared in the parent-industrial complex forever!!!"

    2. Re:Well, all the platforms are quick to do that. by noodler · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Part of the problem is that these services have too much blind faith in their ability to make predictions based upon incomplete knowledge. "

      You're seriously overthinking this which makes you conclude they are in some way contemplating their actions.
      They're not.
      All they do is shove more of the same shit you watched towards you. That's all they do.
      They don't care for the consequences. There is no 'faith' or 'prediction' involved.
      The algorithm can be sumerized in five words: More of the same shit.

    3. Re: Well, all the platforms are quick to do that. by Evtim · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Clearing the viewing history really helps. With or without being subscribed. Freshly deleted YouTube non-subscribed only gives me viral and trending videos as well as the most popular videos in my region. So there's geo-location at work but that is all...

      BTW, I have yet to see one, even one loony video recommended to me....according to the crazies in the mainstream media I should have, since I follow "gateway to alt-right" personalities...

      This is non-story....unless you are peddling towards total authoritarian control.

  4. Instagram worked as designed by magzteel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Instagram's recommendations were consistent with the interests expressed. I fail to see what the problem is here.

    This may not be "fake news", but it is garbage.

  5. They should use PubMed by Krishnoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Too bad these sites don't provide preferential recommendations/promotions to accounts and posts that contain links to PubMed articles. If they're going to use these algorithms, they could certainly promote accounts that link to the original publication even if those accounts promote a conspiracy theory, that the research was real and is being suppressed, etc.

    That would at least get actual scientific research reports out front. If you can find anti-vax peer-reviewed research on PubMed, you go right ahead and link/share it. If you can't find it there because it's "being suppressed", find (and let the sites promote) any other sites that publish experimental research in any kind of refereed journal. It would hopefully get this information more in the open and at least cursorily examined for reputability and accuracy by people on the fence.

  6. What did you expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's showing adults what they ask to be shown. You told Instagram to show you Antivaxx content and it did show you antivaxx content. If it had told you "welcome to Instagram, check out these antivaxxers", then there would have been a problem.

  7. Re: Contaminated polio vaccine. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 3, Informative
    Except you left out the first paragraph:

    Early epidemiologic studies were inadequate in demonstrating an increase in cancer incidence associated with contaminated vaccine. Recently, investigators have provided persuasive evidence that SV40 is present in human ependymomas, choroid plexus tumors, bone tumors, and mesotheliomas, however, the etiologic role of the virus in tumorigenesis has not been established.

    Don't you think that's a bit dishonest if you leave out the first part.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.