It seems that bullying is a problem that affects more and more people, especially teenagers, both online and in the real world. Its repercussions into people’s lives can be massive and that is why Instagram is trying to find more pleasant ways of interacting within the social network.
In order to do this, they have been working at two new features that both prevent bullying and to empower potential victims to stand for themselves.
Instagram Is Fighting Bullying
Let’s see which are those measures that Instagram took to make their social network a better and safer place for its users.
Restrict – protect your account
Out of the two updates, Instagram is about to release – testing will be available soon – the most important – in our opinion – is Restrict. Let’s say you have direct contact with your aggressor in real life and don’t want to escalate the bullying more by blocking him or her on Instagram. What you can do is Restrict them and all the comments they post will be available only to them. If there are comments that you would like to appear on your profile, you can add them. But they are all moderated by you, without the one that was rejected to know. They won’t see when you are online or read their DMs.
Encouraging positive interactions within users
Instagram’s mission is to create a safer and better place for its users to share experiences with their followers. They have used for years AI tools that could help them discover potential bullying and eradicate it.
But this time they are doing even more: they have launched a new feature that will let users know if their comment might be offensive before even posting it. They are doing so in order to give people time to reflect on what they are about to say and change their attitude towards the comment.
After the testing period, they have realized that once they give people the time to reflect on what they were about to say, their attitude would change and they won’t post a harmful comment.
What do you think about the new Instagram features? Do you think they will eradicate bullying on the platform?
See also: How do you use Instagram ads?
