Is Instagram ethical?

Washington Post (WP) has published an investigation revealing that Instagram has been used in the recent years for trafficking in female domestic migrant workers.

Meta’s reliance on automation for content moderation is a significant factor in the erroneous enforcement of its policies, which has resulted in the removal of non-violative content in support of Palestine on Instagram and Facebook.

The investigation was published in April 2023, titled How Facebook and Instagram became marketplaces for child sex trafficking.

Instagram made 'attorney-client privilege' swag hats for employees who concealed kids safety docs in court battle

Instagram allegedly made hats for its employees with the phrase “attorney-client privilege” – an “utterly sick” joke about using legal loopholes to conceal explosive legal documents about kids social media addiction, according to critics.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — The parent company of Facebook and Instagram confirmed it donated $1 million to the inaugural fund of President-Elect Donald Trump.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram confirmed it donated $1 million to the inaugural fund of President-Elect Donald Trump.

A former Meta engineer accused the owner of Facebook and Instagram of censoring Palestinian Instagram posts in a lawsuit that also accuses the company of wrongful termination and discrimination.

He also discussed previously abandoned plans to encrypt Instagram’s direct messages, noting that doing so would have made it harder to protect children on the platform.

In the days and weeks after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, several abortion rights groups had their Instagram and TikTok posts removed or accounts suspended, while Instagram and Facebook deleted the posts of users who mentioned abortion pills.

Multiple cases have been filed by school districts and local governments alleging that social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok and Youtube harm children and teenagers' mental health.

Similarly, Instagram and TikTok apologized for algorithmically silencing Black voices [41, 42].

On Tuesday, questioning of Adam Mosseri, the Instagram CEO, began with the lawyer for the states accusing the company of touting safety features for teens, but not being forthcoming that young people don’t use them.

CSO's report exposes Instagram's failure to curb hate speech against women politicians

"Meta's Instagram failed to curtail hate speech against women politicians, report says", 14 August 2024

Meta has come under fire in recent days from social media users startled to discover they’ve been automatically enrolled in a relatively new setting that reduces “political content” on Instagram and Threads, with the company being accused of censorship amid an important global election year.

The first was Instagram allowing young users, ages 13-17, to set up business accounts on the platform, which made those users’ contact information publicly available.

Instagram was fined $402 million in the EU for making young users’ data public | The Verge

Limit How Instagram Uses Your Account to Build Its Network

Human Rights Watch documented the DOI policy being invoked to censor “social and political discourse” around the hostilities, including reporting, neutral discussion, and condemnation of “dangerous” organizations—the type of content the revised DOI policy purports to permit.[110] In one instance, Instagram removed reposting of content from an Arabic language account from the Turkish news broadcast (TRT Arabi) that included a statement in Arabic from the Ministry of Health in Gaza that Israeli forces had ordered the Rantisi hospital for children to evacuate before they bombed it.

Instagram users allege that posts and accounts have been suspended or banned due to their pro-Palestinian content in the wake of Israel's intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Other accounts, including the Instagram account of Let’s Talk Palestine, which posts educational content about Palestine, reported being temporarily suspended.[85] Meta said, “These accounts were initially locked for security reasons after signs of compromise, and we’re working to make contact with the account owners to make sure they have access.” The Palestine-based Quds News Network reported that its Facebook page was permanently deleted[86] and that its Instagram account was suspended.[87] Mondoweiss correspondent Leila Warah, who is based in the West Bank, reported in October that Instagram suspended her account.

Instagram and Facebook have in several instances since October 7 suspended or permanently disabled the accounts of prominent Palestinian content creators, independent Palestinian journalists, and Palestinian activists.

Outraged users took to X to express shock on Friday, accusing Instagram of actively censoring and suppressing political discussion in a year already rife with political tensions.

Instagram hides search results for 'Democrats'

Instagram blocked searches for #democrats and other political hashtags

Meta (Facebook & Instagram) – Eliminating DEI hiring policies and dismantling internal DEI teams.

The deal cut short a landmark trial in federal court in Oakland, California, where the Instagram and Facebook parent company was fighting claims that it deliberately designed features that get children addicted.

A bipartisan group of 42 attorneys general sued Meta in 2023, alleging features on Facebook and Instagram are addictive and are aimed at kids and teens.

Massachusetts regulators say Instagram’s design is detrimental to health and well-being and that the company misled the public about the platform’s dangers, thus creating a public nuisance.

The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell sued Instagram’s parent company under laws prohibiting unfair and deceptive trade practices and public nuisances.

Court orders Instagram and Facebook's Meta to pay $567M to address kids' mental health online

On appeal, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court concluded that Section 230 — which for decades has shielded social media companies from lawsuits related to content hosted on their platforms — does not protect Instagram from claims arising from the company’s own design features and business practices.

The controversy comes after Meta’s independent Oversight Board recently ruled that Instagram wrongly removed a post from a Brazil-based account celebrating lesbian visibility.

Government lawyers argued the company's $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp in 2014 were part of Meta's "buy or bury" strategy to maintain market dominance.

Meta Wins FTC Monopoly Lawsuit Over Instagram, WhatsApp Purchases - Business Insider

In the Meta case, the FTC claimed the company shouldn't have been allowed to buy Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, and the agency called for those units to be divested.

In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.”