LOS ANGELES—It seems that Facebook and Instagram are devoting more efforts to addressin the mental health issues caused by the use of their platforms and the effects of the influencers pushing certain products to a naive audience.
Facebook last month had announced they found positive results from their recent Instagram experiment in which the platform hid the "Like" counts in seven countries. These social media platforms are under a growing amount of scrutiny from critics—psychological and social scientists—who are studying the negative effects of influencer marketing on users.
It is in this context that Instagram has on Wednesday announced that the company wanted to restrict some diet and nutra posts.
A large amount of influencers and pseudo-influencers are promoting the miraculous effects of gut squishing, face tweaking and diuretics that will help the users to get closer to their beauty goals, i.e, a filtered version of themselves. Even the most famous example of digital influencers are under fire with these new measures: the Kardashians. This rich family and massive public relations machine can be affected by Instagram’s new strategy when it comes to reaching a wide audience to promote products and/or lifestyle.
Even if the social media company is, as usual, not able to provide a very precise guideline and definition of the problematic posts (leaving the marketers in a stressful grey area), Facebook has explained to the website Mashable, that they will take two different actions for the unhealthy diet and lifestyle posts.
In order to protect their audience from any misleading post or misconception communication, they will:
•Restrict: If a post promotes the use of certain weight loss products or cosmetic procedures, and has an incentive to buy or includes a price, Instagram will restrict users they know to be under 18 from seeing that post
•Remove: When the content makes a miraculous claim about certain diet or weight loss products, and is linked to a commercial offer such as a discount code, it will no longer be allowed under the Community Guidelines and will be removed from Instagram
It is important to note that many marketers remain suspicious with those recent measures. With Facebook and Instagram being private entertainment companies, no one can forget about the commercial and profits goals for all existing firms and therefore, the threat that independent influencers—who are making their own money without sharing the benefits with Mr. Zuckerberg—represent.
On a positive note, it is still a step toward global mental healthcare improvement and especially eating disorders prevention. Way to go!
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