Young social media users help train machine learning program to flag sexual conversations

In a first-of-its-kind effort, social media researchers from Drexel University, Vanderbilt University, Georgia Institute of Technology and Boston University are turning to young social media users to help build a machine learning program that can spot unwanted sexual advances on Instagram. Trained on data from more than 5 million direct messages—annotated and contributed by 150 adolescents who had experienced conversations that made them feel sexually uncomfortable or unsafe—the technology can quickly and accurately flag risky DMs.

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