Instagram rolls out anti-abuse features: Here’s what they mean for users – Times of India

Social media, in general, has a massive online abuse and hate speech problem. Despite claimed efforts from the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, online abuse and hate is rampant on these social networks. Case in point: the vile racist abuse three England players faced in the aftermath of their team’s loss against Italy in the Euro 2020 final.
Instagram in a move to combat the problem has rolled out new anti-hate and anti-abuse features. “We hope these new features will better protect people from seeing abusive content, whether it’s racist, sexist, homophobic or any other type of abuse,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said in a blog post.
Instagram’s new features will give people the ability for people to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased attention. For those post potentially offensive comments, Instagram will hand out sterner warnings. And there’s a new Hidden Words feature, which allows people to filter abusive DM requests. Here’s a look at the new features in detail.

The new Limits features: For public figures and celebrities

Limits is a feature that’s easy to turn on, and will automatically hide comments and DM requests from people who don’t follow you, or who only recently followed you. Mosseri in the blog post said, “We developed this feature because we heard that creators and public figures sometimes experience sudden spikes of comments and DM requests from people they don’t know.”
Mosseri said that creators don’t want to switch off comments and messages completely; they still want to hear from their community and build those relationships. “Limits allows you to hear from your long-standing followers, while limiting contact from people who might only be coming to your account to target you,” explained Mosseri. Limits will be available globally starting today to all Instagram users.

Hidden Words: For offensive comments and spammy DMs

Hidden Words is a feature which allows users to automatically filter offensive words, phrases and emojis into a Hidden Folder. Users have the option to never open it if they don’t want to. It also filters DM requests that are likely to be spammy or low-quality. The feature was launched recently in select countries but will be rolled out globally to all users by the end of this month.

Sterner warnings for those who abuse

Instagram already has a feature where they warn users who post offensive comments. Now, rather than waiting for the second or third comment, Instagram show a stronger message the first time and even threaten with a potential deletion of their account.
“We know there’s more to do, including improving our systems to find and remove abusive content more quickly, and holding those who post it accountable,” Mosseri added in the blog post.