Instagram Founder's Application Launches Social Discussion Feature Similar To Reddit

Artifact launched a new public social discussion feature (photo: doc. Artifact)

JAKARTA - The news-sharing application founded by Instagram co-founder Artifact launched a new public social discussion feature. Users can comment and engage in conversation around news articles they read on the service.

Users wishing to leave comments on articles must create an Artifact account and add a phone number for the verification process, this is to reduce spam and moderate content.

This protection, according to Artifact should help prevent the platform from turning to toxic waste like other leading news-sharing apps.

The app also encourages users on the platform to use their real names although they can still use pseudonyms.

To address moderation in a number of ways, Artifact will give each new profile a reputation score based on community upvotes and downvotes on user comments.

The reputation score feature is similar to Reddit's voting mechanism, or even Twitter's Community Notes fact-check feature, but with the addition of a real score that is visible and displayed to all users.

A user's reputation score will appear as a numeric number next to each commenter's display name and on each community member's profile.

What's more, this score also uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) for moderation, and will play a role in determining the rating of comments.

Such flagged content will then be reviewed for compliance with Artifact's community guidelines and Terms of Service. If it doesn't meet the guidelines, it will be removed.

The company said it would ban profiles if necessary, in such an extreme violation of its policies, as quoted by TechCrunch and Engadget, Wednesday, April 12.

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Artifact in January, which empowers the app with AI to sort the stories users want to read or according to their interests.

"We have a strong and thriving community and sometimes the most important voices are never interviewed or quoted," said Systrom. "This discussion gives everyone an opportunity to participate and have a voice."