A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said: ‘“We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content on their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended.
A list of violent content on one user’s feed, published by tech news site 404, included: a man being set on fire; a man shooting a cashier at point blank range; videos from an account called “PeopleDeadDaily”; and a pig being beaten with a wrench.
Several users posted videos of their Reels feeds dominated by “sensitive content” screens that are designed to shield users from graphic material.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has apologised after Instagram users were subjected to a flood of violence, gore, animal abuse and dead bodies on their Reels feeds.
Users reported the footage dominating their feeds after an apparent malfunction in Instagram’s algorithm, which curates what people see on the app.
