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Incident 331: Bug in Instagram’s “Related Hashtags” Algorithm Allegedly Caused Disproportionate Treatment of Political Hashtags

Description: A bug was reported by Instagram’s spokesperson to have prevented an algorithm from populating related hashtags for thousands of hashtags, resulting in an allege preferential treatment for some politically partisan hashtags.

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Alleged: Instagram developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Instagram users.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
331
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2020-08-05
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

1.1. Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Discrimination and Toxicity

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+2
A “Bug” In Instagram's Hashtags Has Been Favoring Donald Trump
A “Bug” In Instagram's Hashtags Has Been Favoring Donald Trump

A “Bug” In Instagram's Hashtags Has Been Favoring Donald Trump

buzzfeednews.com

Instagram’s Hashtag Blocking Favors Trump, Hurts Biden

Instagram’s Hashtag Blocking Favors Trump, Hurts Biden

techtransparencyproject.org

A “Bug” In Instagram's Hashtags Has Been Favoring Donald Trump
buzzfeednews.com · 2020

The difference between these two results, which an Instagram spokesperson told BuzzFeed News was a “bug,” prevented hashtags including #Trump and #MAGA from being associated with potentially negative content. Meanwhile, Instagram hashtags a…

Instagram’s Hashtag Blocking Favors Trump, Hurts Biden
techtransparencyproject.org · 2020

Facebook-owned Instagram disabled ‘related hashtags’ for key Trump content, blocking potentially negative messages. Biden didn’t get the same treatment.

Instagram has shielded President Donald Trump from potentially negative hashtags while …

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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