JTA — White supremacist networks, terror group supporters and Nazi merchandise vendors have gone largely unchecked on Instagram amid weakened content moderation by parent company Meta, according to a new analysis by the Anti-Defamation League.

Instagram failed to remove 93 percent of hateful and extremist content reported by the ADL’s researchers, a figure the watchdog said demonstrated a “systemic failure” to protect users, according to the report published on Wednesday. The content included accounts and posts linked to white supremacist networks, groups that are designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US government, and vendors selling Nazi merchandise.

The report comes over a year after Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would do away with its fact-check program and stop using automation to detect and remove hate speech.

“Instagram is developing into a hub for hate and antisemitism, and our research demonstrates this clearly,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the ADL, said in a statement. “Meta’s moderation rollback has created a permissive environment where extremists thrive, bad actors turn Instagram’s own features into amplification tools for hate, and as a result, vulnerable communities suffer.”

While Elon Musk’s decision to permit formerly banned extremist account-holders to return to X has made his platform the most prominent avatar of social media’s abandonment of moderation, Meta has undergone a similar shift more recently. The ADL has sparred with Musk and X in the past as well.

Meta still does not allow “organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on our platforms,” according to the company’s community........

© The Times of Israel