Description: An alleged Instagram algorithm malfunction caused users’ Reels feeds to be overwhelmed with violent and distressing content. Many reported seeing deaths, extreme brutality, and other graphic material in rapid succession, often without prior engagement with similar content. The sudden exposure caused psychological distress for many users, with minors and vulnerable individuals particularly affected by the graphic content. Meta confirmed an AI failure was responsible and apologized.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Meta , Instagram recommendation algorithm and Instagram Reels developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Meta users , Instagram users and minors.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Instagram recommendation algorithm and Instagram Reels
Incident Stats
Incident ID
957
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-02-28
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has apologised after Instagram users were subjected to a flood of violence, gore, animal abuse and dead bodies on their Reels feeds.
Users reported the footage after an apparent malfunction in Instagram’s algorithm, w…
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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