Instagram has today announced two new features to deter bullying on their social media platform. The platform now asks ‘are you sure?’ before posting an offensive comment.
Instagram has extended their commitment to leading the industry in the fight against online bullying, and are rethinking the whole experience of Instagram to meet that commitment.
Comment Warning:
This is a new feature that encourages people to pause and reflect on a potentially hurtful comment before posting it.
In the last few days, Instagram started rolling out this new feature, powered by AI, which notifies people when their comment may be considered offensive before it’s posted.
This intervention gives people a chance to reflect and undo their comment and prevents the recipient from receiving the harmful comment notification.
From early tests of this feature, Instagram has found that it encourages some people to undo their comment and share something less hurtful once they have had a chance to reflect.
Restrict:
Restrict is a new feature that allows you to prevent bullying across Instagram, including in comments and direct messages.
Instagram has found that young people online are reluctant to block, unfollow, or report their bully because it could escalate the situation, especially if they interact with their bully in real life.
Soon, we will begin testing a new way to protect your account from unwanted interactions called Restrict.
Once you Restrict someone, comments on your posts from that person will only be visible to that person.
You can choose to make a restricted person’s comments visible to others by approving their comments.
When you receive a comment from a restricted person it will appear behind a sensitivity screen, so you don’t have to read it before you approve or delete it.
Restricted people won’t be able to see what action you’ve taken on their comments, or when you’ve read their direct messages.
Their messages will appear in Message Requests, rather than your main Inbox.
They also won’t be able to see when you’re active on Instagram.
Instagram acknowledged that it is their responsibility to create a safe environment on their platform and has been an important priority for some time. They will continue to invest in better understanding and tackling this problem.
