What happened to Instagram? Why did violent reels start appearing? Know why Meta apologized
Crores of people use Instagram all over the world, including India. But on February 26, something happened that shocked Instagram users all over the world. On Wednesday, crores of Instagram users started seeing violent reel content in their feeds. These reels and posts were such that Instagram blocks them from showing, but they were being shown under “sensitive content”.
Sensitive content shown to people
bro what the FUCK is this new instagram reels feed… 6 sensitive content vids in a row is insane: pic.twitter.com/pgDG6dBVIX
— chris ﾒ𝟶 (@christwod) February 26, 2025
POV: your Instagram feed is only showing sensitive content today pic.twitter.com/2xkvSHLduk
— YouWontBelieveMe (@markhanalla) February 27, 2025
Man shot on IG live by his girlfriend
Join the telegram for graphic content 🔞
👇👇👇https://t.co/LncEPXC56V#fights #shootings #memes #fightvideos #robberys #fightvids #police #shootouts #hoodvids #gore pic.twitter.com/jSULHhSVyV
— ʜᴏᴏᴅsᴄᴀʀʏ ™ (@hoodscarytv) May 11, 2024
However, after receiving complaints from users around the world, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, issued an official statement and apologized for the inconvenience. According to Meta’s policy, the company removes objectionable content from its platform or allows some content to be published only for the purpose of raising awareness on topics like human rights and conflict.
Meta apologizes for the ‘error’
According to a The Wall Street Journal report, a Meta official apologized for the matter on Thursday (February 27), saying, “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We want to apologize for this mistake.”
However, the company did not say how many Instagram users were affected by this and also did not disclose the reason behind this glitch.
Algorithm update may be the reason
According to media reports, many tech experts have assessed this glitch of Instagram, according to which there can be two reasons for this. The first is that Instagram’s algorithm prevents sensitive posts from being shown if found. If there is a glitch in this system, it can show the content without filtering it, due to which users will start seeing sensitive content in their feed.
The second possibility is that the recent algorithm update has mistakenly given priority to violent or sensitive posts, which inadvertently increased their reach. From these two examples, it can be understood what could be the reason for objectionable content appearing in Instagram’s feed.
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