Instagram Will Hide Photoshopped Images, Digital Artists Fume

Facebook-owned Instagram will be hiding photoshopped images uploaded on the application. This move by Instagram has received mixed reactions on the internet. Digital artists have slammed the photo application for calling their art as fake. Instagram has started hiding photographs by calling it as false information. It reviews the photographs by independent reviewers and decides to hide photoshopped pictures.

This move has been directly linked with Mark Zuckerberg's clamp down on fake news. It was during the 2016 US Presidential election that Facebook was blamed for spreading alleged fake news on its social application. Facebook and Instagram were accused during the crisis of deepfakes which shocked social media like a storm. The picture in question was of Instagram handle mixsociety. A photograph of rainbow mountains became a hit on Instagram but it was hidden by the application. Several digital artists slammed the application for being a gatekeeper of artistic expressions.

The artists behind such art revealed that the photographs can be differentiated whether it's real or fake. After hiding the pictures, such posts do not feature in Explore and Hashtag pages. But pictures which mention that the picture is photoshopped does not get hidden. The application had issued a statement that said that photo and video has become a major source to spread misinformation leading which a third-party fact-checker has been appointed to tackle such posts both on its app and Facebook. However, digital artists believe that art of recreating images has been affected. However, the balanced move from Facebook will surely dampen spirits of miscreants for posting fake images. Talking about the post which was pulled down, a spokesperson reached out to the independent fact-checker and after taking adequate review changed its rating. The photograph in question now has been reviewed and the issue has been resolved.