Instagram adds new features intending to limit replies on posts and hateful content.
Hate messages and insults are not alien to any social network. On Twitter, it is quite common for some topics to generate a multitude of responses with violent messages or insults, and something similar happens on Instagram, especially with posts that go viral. From this last social network, they are going to start fighting it.
Instagram has announced the implementation of “new ways to protect our community from abuse”. The goal is to limit comments and private messages that are racist, sexist, or directly disrespectful.
One of the new features being launched at the moment is called Limits and is similar to what Twitter implemented some time ago: the ability to hide comments on posts. Although it has some aspects to take into account.
This limitation is especially focused on those who do not follow you or those who have just started following you. In addition, Instagram will try to avoid “immediately if someone tries to post offensive content”.
At the moment, they are not considering turning off replies altogether because everyone wants to keep listening to followers, according to Instagram. They value that these “limits allow you to listen to your longtime followers while preventing contact from people who may only be accessing your account to address you.”
In addition, another function focused on message requests has also been added: Hidden Words. The new feature serves to automatically block messages if they contain any of the words selected by the user. These will end up directly in another even more hidden folder that you can avoid looking at.
We all know of accounts that receive a multitude of hate messages, whether politically motivated or of any kind. We’ll see if these new features help make Instagram a more comfortable space for all users.
