Instagram expands fact-checking globally

Yahoo – AFP, December 17, 2019

Instagram launched a US-based fact-checking program in early 2019, which
has now gone global (AFP Photo/DENIS CHARLET)

San Francisco (AFP) - Instagram on Monday announced it had gone global in its fight against misinformation, expanding its third-party fact-checking network around the world.

The Facebook-owned social platform launched a fact-checking program in the US early this year.

"Today's expansion is an important step in our ongoing efforts to fight misinformation on Instagram," it said in an online post.

"Photo and video based misinformation is increasingly a challenge across our industry, and something our teams have been focused on addressing."

Facebook and Instagram, like many other social media platforms, have come under intense pressure in the United States and globally for allowing misinformation to spread.

Instagram initially began working with third-party organisations in the US to help identify, review and label bogus posts.

Facebook began its own version of the program in December 2016.

Agence France-Presse currently works with Facebook's fact-checking program in almost 30 countries and nine languages. AFP will also fact-check Instagram posts.

Around 60 media, including news organisations and specialised fact-checkers, work worldwide on the Facebook program.

Under the program, content rated "false" by fact-checkers is downgraded in news feeds so fewer people will see it.

If someone tries to share a post found to be misleading or false, Facebook presents them with the fact-checked article. No posts are removed from Facebook and fact-checkers are free to choose how and what they wish to investigate.

Instagram uses the same methods.

Content deemed to be false is ignored by Instagram's search or recommendation tools and is shown with a warning label if users come across it.

"When content has been rated as false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker, we reduce its distribution," Instagram said.

"In addition, it will be labeled so people can better decide for themselves what to read, trust and share."

Once a post is found to be deceptive, software searches for it across Instagram's platform to brand it accordingly.

"We use image matching technology to find further instances of this content and apply the label, helping reduce the spread of misinformation," Instagram said.

"In addition, if something is rated false or partly false on Facebook, starting today we'll automatically label identical content if it is posted on Instagram (and vice versa)."

Instagram will also expand an anti-bullying feature developed earlier this year.

Artificial intelligence software will scan captions and comments as people write them and will notify users if their comments could be considered offensive.

"We've found that these types of nudges can encourage people to reconsider their words," Instagram said.

Russia sends its first humanoid robot Fedor into space

Yahoo – AFP, Maria ANTONOVA, 22 August 2019

Named Fedor, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia

Russia on Thursday launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.

Named Fedor, short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia.

Fedor blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at 6:38 am Moscow time (0338 GMT) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is set to dock with the space station on Saturday and stay till September 7.

Soyuz ships are normally manned on such trips, but on Thursday no humans are travelling in order to test a new emergency rescue system.

Instead of cosmonauts, Fedor, also known as Skybot F850, was strapped into a specially adapted pilot's seat, with a small Russian flag in hand.

"Let's go. Let's go," the robot was heard saying during launch, repeating the famous phrase used by first man in space Yuri Gagarin.

The silvery anthropomorphic robot stands 1.80 metres (5 foot 11 inches) tall and weighs 160 kilogrammes (353 pounds).

Fedor has Instagram and Twitter accounts with posts saying it is learning new skills such as opening a bottle of water. In the station, it will trial those manual skills in very low gravity.

"That's connecting and disconnecting electric cables (and) using standard items, from a screwdriver and a spanner to a fire extinguisher," the Russian space agency's director for prospective programmes and science, Alexander Bloshenko, said in televised comments ahead of the launch.

"The first stage of in-flight experiments went according to the flight plan," the robot tweeted after reaching orbit.

Fedor copies human movements, a key skill that allows it to remotely help astronauts or even people on Earth to carry out tasks while the humans are strapped into an exoskeleton.

Fedor has Instagram and Twitter accounts

Such robots will eventually carry out dangerous operations such as space walks, Bloshenko told the state news agency RIA Novosti.

On the website of one of the state backers of the project, the Foundation of Advanced Research Projects, Fedor is described as potentially useful on Earth for working in high radiation environments, demining and tricky rescue missions.

Though initially developed for the emergencies ministry, Fedor can also be seen shooting at targets from two handguns in a video posted by Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin.

On board, the robot will perform tasks supervised by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, who joined the ISS in July and will wear an exoskeleton and augmented reality glasses in a series of experiments later this month.

Since Fedor is not trained to grab space station handles to move about in microgravity conditions, its legs will be immobilised on the space station, Bloshenko said.

Fedor not the first

Space agency chief Rogozin showed pictures of the robot to President Vladimir Putin this month, saying it will be "an assistant to the crew".

"In the future we plan that this machine will also help us conquer deep space," he added.

Russian media speculated that Fedor-like robots will be used in Russia's Moon programme.

Fedor is not the first robot to go into space.

In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot developed with General Motors that had a similar aim of working in high-risk environments.

It was flown back to Earth in 2018 after experiencing technical problems.

In 2013, Japan sent up a small robot called Kirobo along with the ISS's first Japanese space commander. Developed with Toyota, it was able to hold conversations -- albeit only in Japanese.

Named Fedor, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia

Fedor has Instagram and Twitter accounts.

#UPDATE An unmanned spacecraft carrying Russia's first humanoid robot to be sent into orbit successfully docks @Space_Station following a failed attempt over the weekend https://t.co/7Ygb8MwMuf pic.twitter.com/V8t8YFnWd2

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 27 augustus 2019

Instagram begins letting users report misinformation

France24 –AFP, 15 August 2019

San Francisco (AFP) - Instagram on Thursday added a way for users to easily report deceptive posts at the photo and video-oriented social network owned by Facebook.

A new tool being rolled out out lets Instagram users tap a "report" option on-screen when they see a post they deem dubious, then tap a "false information" tag to prompt review by third-party fact-checkers, according to Facebook spokeswoman Stephanie Otway.

The option was expected to be available to all Instagram users by the end of this month.

Such prompts will be one of several "signals" used to determine whether content should be scrutinized by fact-checkers, who will determine their veracity.

"Starting today, people can let us know if they see posts on Instagram they believe may be false," Otway said.

"We're investing heavily in limiting the spread of misinformation across our apps, and we plan to share more updates in the coming months."

The world's biggest social network has been cracking down on fraudulent influence campaigns and bogus posts as pressure has mounted for online platforms to defend against efforts to manipulate online conversations.

User-reported Instagram posts found to be bogus but not in violation of the service's policies will not be deleted, but won't appear when users use "explore" or hashtag searches to discover content.

"Explore and hashtags allow people on Instagram to find content they haven?t already chosen to follow, and by filtering misinformation from these places, we can significantly limit its reach," Otway said.

Feedback from the new tool will be used to train artificial intelligence software to scan for, and rate, fake posts without waiting for them to be reported, according to Facebook.

Pope Francis posts first picture on Instagram

Yahoo – AFP, 19 March 2016

A man looks at the Instagram account of Pope Francis (Franciscus) on
March 19, 2016 in Rome (AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis posted his first photo on Instagram on Saturday, a picture showing him kneeling down praying, on the third anniversary of his inauguration as Holy Father.

"I want to walk with you along the way of God's mercy and tenderness," he wrote on the photo-sharing platform, under the account name franciscus.

"Instagram will help to tell the story of a papacy, letting everyone who wants to come along and get to know the papacy of Pope Francis," said Vatican communications chief Dario Vigano.

Photos from Vatican daily the Osservatore Romano will be posted, as well as brief videos, "to try to show details which demonstrate .. aspects of intimacy and inclusion which Pope Francis lives every day," he said.

Pope Francis met Instagram chief and founder Kevin Systrom at the Vatican last month. Instagram, which was acquired by social media giant Facebook in 2012, had over 400 million users as of the end of February.

The pope has some 30 million followers in nine languages on Twitter, which he joined in 2012 under the handle @pontifex -- the word "pope" in Latin.

Related Article:

Pope Francis to join Instagram on third anniversary of election

Pope Francis to join Instagram on third anniversary of election

Pontiff to use the handle Franciscus in attempt to use social medium to spread Catholic message to younger generation

The Guardian, Agence France-Presse in Vatican City, 17 March 2016

Pope Francis at the end of his weekly general audience in Saint Peter’s
Square in Rome. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

Pope Francis will make his Instagram debut this week, joining the likes of Justin Bieber and Cristiano Ronaldo on the image-sharing forum, under the handle Franciscus, the Vatican has confirmed.

The pontiff chose Saturday as the date for his debut on the celebrity-dominated social medium as it marks the third anniversary of his inauguration as the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

The move represents the latest plank of a Vatican social media strategy designed to ensure Francis’s message reaches a maximum number of believers and non-believers across the world, with particular focus on the younger generation.

Francis is already a major player on Twitter. Under the @Pontifex handle he tweets in nine languages, including Latin, with the English account followed by nearly 9 million people and the Spanish one by more than 11 million.

The move to join Instagram has been anticipated for some time as it is now bigger and faster-growing than Twitter, with some 400 million users worldwide.

Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s CEO and co-founder, met Francis at the Vatican last month, later revealing they had discussed “the power of images to unite people across different cultures and languages”.

In a post on his own Instagram account, Systrom said: “It was by far one of the most memorable experiences of my life!”

Francis joined Twitter four days after his March 2013 election with what has become his trademark appeal to believers to “pray for me”. The central importance of prayer has been a recurring theme of the tweets that have followed.

Some have been aimed firmly at practising Catholics, such as: “The sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist, are privileged places of encountering Christ.” Wednesday brought a typical example:

As we exit the confessional, we will feel his strength which gives new life and restores ardor to the faith. After confession we are reborn.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) March 16, 2016

The pope has also used the medium to react to global events, or voice his views on the social issues of the day. Francis also tweets tips for living, such as: “I cannot imagine a Christian who does not know how to smile.”

To date, however, his Twitter feed has been short on images, with only two photographs and one short video clip uploaded.

And, given that he nearly always wears the same clothes and spends most of his time in one place, generating an interesting photo stream for Instagram will present some challenges for his media team.

On the upside, Francis does have a steady flow of interesting visitors, he gets to some remote places and he does have exclusive access to the artistic treasures of the Vatican museums.

Francis’s interest in the internet was underlined in January when he spoke out against online trolls. He has also hosted major figures in the new digital economy, including the Google boss Eric Schmidt and Apple chief Tim Cook.