Instagram to Get Rid of Inauthentic Engagements

Inauthentic likes, follows, shares, comments and other engagements on social media platforms have been a regular thing over the last few years, but most platforms try to reduce this from happening as much as possible. Facebook-owned photo and video sharing app Instagram is one of these apps that have, in the past, advised its users not to allow third party apps to access their accounts.

Now, they’ve taken another big step towards purging these inauthentic engagements on their platform. The company, launched in October 2010, has announced that they’ve built a Machine Learning (ML) tool to help spot such fake accounts that allow likes and comments, indicating that some images or posts were enjoyed much more than they actually were.

Instagram has warned users against allowing third party apps to access their accounts by sharing usernames and passwords, however, this is still happening frequently. These third party apps could very often lead to accounts being locked or hacked or even being used to send spam messages.

“This type of behaviour is bad for the community, and violates our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use. These new measures will be ongoing, and accounts that continue to use third-party apps to grow their audience may see their Instagram experience impacted,” said the company.

Instagram regularly tries to keep the experience as genuine as possible on their social media network, by taking strict action against fake accounts in the past. However, this is the first time they will be taking measures to prevent fakes likes on accounts, following suit after its parent company did the same.

Facebook recently launched a campaign against misformation and foreign attempts to exert political influence and generate polarized opinions among its users, which created chaos. In this fight against automated bots, Facebook is said to have deleted over 750 million fake accounts in just the last 3 months or so.

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