Human Reviewers Behind Instagram Glitches

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Key Takeaways

  • Instagram and Threads users are experiencing accounts and posts being blocked and restricted, often without obvious reasons.
  • Instagram head Adam Mosseri blamed human reviewers for the platform moderation problem.
  • He stated they were not provided with enough context.

Instagram and Threads users report losing access to their accounts and posts, often without a substantial reason. Instagram stated that human reviewers were the cause of the current platform moderation problem.

Users are sharing that their accounts or posts are being blocked for reasons such as sharing a picture from a video game, sharing a Meta AI Instagram story, or commenting about their own children.

Instagram disabled Umar Shakir’s account | Source: The Verge

On Oct. 11, Instagram head Adam Mosseri addressed this situation on Threads, blaming human reviewers for “making calls without being provided the context <…> which was a miss.” Replying to the user in the comments, Mosseri added that one of the tools the company used “broke,” which caused moderators to have insufficient information to make decisions.

It’s unclear what information reviewers received initially, as some of the issues seem impossible if human moderation was indeed involved. The Verge news writer Umar Shakir reports that he was blocked for being younger than 13 years old, which is the age restriction for using Instagram. At Meta’s request, Shakir provided his ID, but this didn’t lead to the company restoring his account.

According to Instagram policies, new underaged users face several restrictions, including sensitive content control, private accounts, and time limits.

Users also reports their content being downranked and post engagement falling to zero.

It causes followers to not to see recent posts from creators they follow in their feeds. According to Mosseri’s reaction, the company is unsure about why.

Earlier this fall, Meta was blocking links to documents allegedly leaked about vice presidential candidate JD Vance.