The Anti-Defamation League alleged in a report on Wednesday that Instagram removed just 7% of the content that it flagged for violating the platforms policy.
The nonprofit said that two weeks after it reported 253 accounts and posts to Instagram between Jan. 14 and Feb. 17, but the social media company removed just 11 accounts and eight posts. The ADL says it reported material that was connected to white supremacist networks, supporters of foreign terrorist groups and vendors selling merchandise with Nazi symbols.
A Meta Platforms spokesman disputed the findings and said that the Instagram parent company remains committed to fighting Jew-hatred and violent content, which “has no place on our platforms.”
“Over two-thirds of the accounts and posts flagged by the ADL were removed prior to the publication of this report, while some did not violate our policies,” the Meta spokesman told JNS.
The ADL report documents what it says are tactics to evade detection. In one case, an account posted a video of Islamic State fighters carrying out executions but used an unrelated caption about a clock tower in Mecca. Sellers of Nazi-themed merchandise blurred parts of images to avoid moderation, the report states.
“Our research also demonstrates that Meta failed to remove violative content that clearly featured hate and foreign terrorist organization symbols,” stated Alex Friedfeld, director of research and analysis at the ADL’s extremism center, citing ISIS flags and swastikas. “The report shows how violative posts have garnered thousands to millions of views, with Instagram’s collaborators function being used as a key tool to bring smaller extremist profiles out of obscurity and into more people’s feeds.”
