Instagram is "failing women" by not addressing more than 90% of abusive comments that targeted female politicians, a new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found.
Of the 560,000 comments from the posts of female politicians on the social platform, the study found that 1 in 25 comments was "highly likely" to be abusive. A machine learning model from Google was used to conduct the analysis.
Out of 1,000 comments flagged by CCDH, approximately 93%, or 926 of them, were still on the platform one week later.
"Instagram's failure to uphold and enforce its community guidelines means the platform is failing women and, by extension, our society's desire for equal opportunity and treatment for women," CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed wrote in the report's introduction.
"The cacophony of hate speech, threats, and gendered abuse we find flooding the comment sections of prominent women politicians is united in one shared purpose: to push women out of political life," Ahmed added.
"Repeat offender" accounts, defined as accounts that posted hateful comments at least twice during the six-month data collection period, were responsible for more than a fifth of the abuse, the study found.
Posts from five Democrat women — Vice President Kamala Harris; former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; and Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas — and five Republican women — Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.; and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla.; Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.; and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. — were used in the study.
According to the report, Instagram failed to act on about 92% of abusive comments aimed at Harris, who is running for president on the Democrat ticket after President Joe Biden ended his bid for reelection last month.
In its report, the CCDH called on Instagram to "invest in more trust and safety resources to properly uphold its community rules on hateful and violent content, with special consideration to the challenges faced by political and public figures."
The organization also urged federal lawmakers to "hold social media companies accountable" by reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which largely shields social media platforms from liability.
Cindy Southworth, the head of Women's Safety at Instagram parent company Meta, said that the company will compare the CCDH report against its policies and take action on content if necessary.
"We provide tools so that anyone can control who can comment on their posts, automatically filter out offensive comments, phrases or emojis, and automatically hide comments from people who don't follow them," Southworth said in an emailed statement. "We work with hundreds of safety partners around the world to continually improve our policies, tools, detection and enforcement, and we will review the CCDH report and take action on any content that violates our policies."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.