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Instagram wants you to think twice about that photo caption

A new feature will notify you if your photo caption could be considered offensive and give you the chance to change it before you post.

Alison DeNisco Rayome Managing Editor
Managing Editor Alison DeNisco Rayome joined CNET in 2019, and is a member of the Home team. She is a co-lead of the CNET Tips and We Do the Math series, and manages the Home Tips series, testing out new hacks for cooking, cleaning and tinkering with all of the gadgets and appliances in your house. Alison was previously an editor at TechRepublic.
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Alison DeNisco Rayome
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A new Instagram feature notifies users when their captions on a photo or video may be considered offensive and gives them the chance to write something else before posting, parent company Facebook said in a blog post Monday. Instagram added a similar feature on comments earlier this year. The additions are part of the platform's growing antibullying efforts.

"In our continued effort to lead the industry in the fight against online bullying, we are launching a new feature that asks people to reflect on a post that may contain bullying before it's posted," a Facebook company spokesperson told CNET in an email. "If our artificial intelligence detects potential bullying in a caption, we will give people the option to pause and reconsider the post before it is shared with the community."

Now, when you write a caption for an Instagram post, the site's AI will examine it. If it detects that the caption could be offensive, you'll see a pop-up informing you that the caption is similar to those reported for bullying. You'll have the chance to edit your caption before it is posted. 

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A new Instagram feature uses AI to detect if a caption could be considered offensive before you post it. 

Instagram

While this helps deter bullying, it also educates users on what is and isn't allowed on Instagram. The feature will start rolling out in certain countries Monday (Facebook didn't specify which countries) and will expand globally in the coming months, the post said. 

Originally published Dec. 16, 10:29 a.m. PT.
Update, 11:33 p.m. PT: Adds comment from Facebook. 

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