PerspectiveInstagram's New Fact-Checking Tool May Have Limited Impact on Disinformation

Researchers worry that a new feature giving Instagram users the power to flag false news on the platform won’t do much to head off efforts to use disinformation to sow political discord in 2020.

The role of Instagram in spreading political disinformation took center stage in a pair of Senate reports in December, which highlighted how Russian state operatives used fake accounts on the platforms, masquerading as members of activist groups like Black Lives Matter during and well after the 2016 election. Tonya Riley writes in Gadgets360 that researchers found that some Instagram posts by Russian trolls generated more than twice the “engagement” among users than they did on either Facebook or Twitter.

While Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, have cracked down on the kinds of coordinated campaigns launched by Russia, Instagram still serves as a potent source of memes and images laden with misinformation, especially for younger voters.

“Even though we don’t talk about it as much as Twitter and YouTube, it could potentially sway elections, on the local level especially,” says Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center. “Instagram is where a lot of younger audiences are, so the threat isn’t necessarily about influencing someone from one candidate or another but what kind of wedge issues are going to be impacted by posts on Instagram.”