Instagram is failing to act on harassment against female lawmakers on both sides of the aisle

Instagram is failing to enforce its rules and allowing some of its high-profile accounts to be targeted for abusive comments “with impunity,” according to a new report from the Center to Fight Digital Hate. The anti-hate group says Meta failed to remove 93% of the comments it reported to the company, including those containing racial slurs, violent threats and other disturbing language that would have been seen as a clear violation of social media rules.

CCDH researchers ran for five Republican and five Democratic candidates this year. The group includes Vice President Kamala Harris, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Representative Lauren Boebert.

Researchers reported 1,000 1,000 comments that appeared on the Instagram accounts of lawmakers between January and June of this year and found that Meta “did not take action” on the majority of those comments, and 926 of them are still visible in the application one week after being. report. Reported content includes comments containing racial slurs and other racist language, calls for violence and other harassment.

“We’re simulating a moment when someone reaches out for help, and in fact, Instagram’s failure to act on that adds to the damage done,” CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said in a press conference about the report.

The CCDH also found that many of the abusive comments came from “repeat offenders” who, according to Ahmed, “created a culture of impunity” on the platform. The report comes less than three months before the US presidential election, and notes that the attacks against Harris, who is campaigning for president, seem to have “intensified” since he took the ticket. “Instagram failed to remove 97 out of 105 abusive comments directed at Vice President Kamala Harris, which equates to failing to take action on 92% of the abusive comments directed at her,” the report said. It notes that Instagram failed to remove comments directed at Harris who used in-word, and gender-based slurs.

In a statement, Meta said it will review the report. “We provide tools so anyone can control who can comment on their posts, automatically filter offensive comments, phrases or emojis, and automatically hide comments from people they don’t follow,” said Meta’s Head of Women’s Safety, in a statement. . “We are working with hundreds of security partners around the world to continue to improve our policies, tools, detection and enforcement, and we will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates our policies.”