Instagram launched a new feature that warns users before they post videos or photos with potentially-offensive captions. This is fascinating to me.
Whenever a user attempts to post one of these captions, they’ll receive an alert that gives them a chance to reconsider what they’ve composed. It’s an automated process which uses data gathered by Instagram from bullying reports, says VentureBeat in a recent article.
More from VentureBeat:
Of course, there is nothing stopping a user from going against the advice and posting an abusive comment or caption anyway, but the idea is that a gentle prompt could be all that’s needed to at least reduce abuse on Facebook’s mega-popular photo- and video-sharing platform.
Online abuse and bullying is a perennial problem for most social platforms, and studies have shown that people under the age of 25 who are subjected to cyberbullying are more than twice as likely to self-harm or attempt suicide.
Monitoring the comments and captions of billions of users is a near-impossible challenge for humans alone, which is why all the major platforms have increasingly turned to automated tools — Twitter recently reported that it now proactively removes half of all abusive tweets without anyone reporting them first.
Could pro AV use this kind of alert system?
Thankfully, it doesn’t appear as though bullying is a huge issue in the pro AV world. But certainly there are some common snafus customers run into which could be prevented if they received a little alert, no?
Related: The Most Frustrating Things AV Installers Hear from Clients
The idea that a client could receive an alert before they use their system incorrectly seems… appealing, unless of course you’ve set up an “as a service” business model. In which case, you might rely on the error of their ways.
Still: if we’re starting to see AI used in some AV projects, how long until we see it used to help clients stay on-track with their tech?
