Social media giant Instagram has vowed to crack down on hate speech and will work with UK authorities in the wake of racist messages sent directly to footballers, including Manchester United trio Axel Tuanzebe, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford.
They need to hold those to blame accountable for their actions, or else people are going to point the finger at social media giants. A statement from Instagram, as per Sky News, revealed on Wednesday that new sanctions have been put in place.
So, you’re probably wondering how Instagram will tackle hate speech from now on? Here’s how their statement explains their new approach: “Our rules against hate speech don’t tolerate attacks on people based on their protected characteristics, including race or religion.
“We take action whenever we become aware of hate speech, and we’re continuously improving our detection tools so we can find it faster.
“Between July and September of last year, we took action on 6.5 million pieces of hate speech on Instagram, including in DMs (Direct Messages), 95 per cent of which we doing before anyone reported it.
“Today, we’re announcing that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs.
“Currently, when someone sends DMs that break our rules, we prohibit that person from sending any more messages for a set period of time. Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account.
“We’ll also disable new accounts created to get around our messaging restrictions, and will continue to disable accounts we find that are create purely to send abusive messages.”
They will only share “legally valid” information with the police, adding: “We’re also committed to cooperation with UK law enforcement authorities on hate speech and will respond to valid legal requests for information in these cases.
“As we do with all requests from law enforcement, we’ll push back if they’re too broad, inconsistent with human rights, or not legally valid.”
I don’t know why it has took this long for Instagram to come up with this policy, but I’m glad it’s in place now so long as they can filter racism out of our social media experience.
Nobody wants to see such hate when browsing online.
Read more: Opinion: United against racism, but words are just not enough…
