Instagram has announced a set of new features which aim to help protect people from abuse on the social platform. The app now enables people to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased attention, gives stronger warnings when people try to post potentially offensive comments, and has introduced the Hidden Words feature, which allows people to filter abusive DM requests. The new features announced by Instagram aim to provide users with a new set of options to help them manage their interactions within the app, avoiding offensive comments and messages they receive. The features are specifically to help high profile users, who in times of particular media attention, for example UK footballers following the EURO 2020 or olympians after the 2020 Tokyo Games, can experience spikes in hateful and abusive messages and comments.
1. Limits feature
In the past Instagram has brought out other updates aiming to avoid similar incidents, including harsher penalties for people caught sending abuse via DM and the option for users to switch off DMs from people that they don’t follow. The latest updates include expanding the roll-out of the app’s new ‘Limits’ option, which it started testing last month and which enables users to temporarily limit unwanted comments and messages from selected groups in the app. Instagram will use Limits recommend groups of accounts that high profile users may want to restrict, based on detected activity, which then enables them to hide interactions from these profiles unless they manually choose to see them. According to Instagram, ‘research shows that a lot of negativity towards public figures comes from people who don’t actually follow them, or who have only recently followed them, and who simply pile on in the moment’, as occurred ‘after the recent Euro 2020 final, which resulted in a significant – and unacceptable – spike in racist abuse towards players.’ Rather than turning off comments and messages totally, Limits means users can hear from long-standing followers but limit those who might be just joining in to be abusive.
As of 10th August, Limits is available to everyone on Instagram around the world via their privacy settings, where they can turn it on or off. Instagram is also exploring ways to detect when users may be experiencing a spike in comments and DMs, so they can be prompted to turn on Limits.
Creators also tell us they 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.
Instagram
2. Stronger warming messages
Instagram will also strengthen its warnings on comments that may be offensive. Currently, the app displays a warning message when a user tries to post a potentially offensive comment, based on automated detection of certain terms and phrases within the comment field. If the same user repeatedly tries to post offensive comments, Instagram then displays a stronger warning, reiterating the potential penalties for on-platform abuse. To improve response to these alerts, Instagram is making its messages stronger the first time around with the hopes of further dissuading people from leaving their comments. These messages include, warnings that your account could be deleted, which Instagram has found does help in getting users to reconsider. Users can be prompted to rethink their comments by the slightest deterrent in the posting process, and the specific mention of account deletion can be effective, showing potential to further reduce instances of on-platform abuse.
In the last week we showed warnings about a million times per day on average to people when they were making comments that were potentially offensive. Of these, about 50% of the time the comment was edited or deleted by the user based on these warnings.”
Instagram
3. Hidden word feature
Following several months of testing, Instagram is also rolling out its ‘Hidden Words’ feature for DM requests to all users this month. This enables users to automatically filter DM requests which include potentially offensive terms, phrases and emojis, and these are then re-routed into a ‘Hidden’ folder, which users can choose whether to to view or not. Instagram says that it has also expanded its list of potentially offensive terms and emojis which are filtered and assures that the list will continue to be reviewed and updated over time.
