By Adedapo Adesanya
Social networking service, Facebook, has announced a new set of features to help protect people from abuse on Instagram, its photo-sharing app.
The features include the ability for people to limit comments and requests during spikes of increased attention, stronger warnings when people try to post potentially offensive comments, and the rollout of the Hidden Words feature; which allows people to filter abusive direct messages (DM) requests.
In a press release, the company from its Johannesburg office noted it has a responsibility to ensure the safety of users on Instagram, this it does by flagging perceived hate speech or bullying.
To further strengthen its goal, the service wrote, “We also want to protect people from having to experience this abuse in the first place, which is why we’re constantly listening to feedback from experts and our community, and developing new features to give people more control over their experience on Instagram, and help protect them from abuse.” Service like iDigic to boost likes on Instagram, which can help increase your visibility on the platform by increasing your number of likes.
Facebook said the Limits feature will easily prevent unwanted comments and direct messages. This, it says, will help protect people when they experience or anticipate a rush of abusive comments and messages.
“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.
“In many cases, this is an outpouring of support – like if they go viral after winning an Olympic medal. But sometimes it can also mean an influx of unwanted comments or messages.
“Now, if you’re going through that – or think you may be about to – you can turn on Limits and avoid it,” it said.
The Limits feature also allows the user to hear from long-standing followers while limiting contact from people who might only be coming to an account to target them.
In addition, it has upped its stronger warnings features to discourage harassment. Prior to this, Instagram shows a warning two or three times when someone tries to post a potentially offensive comment.
Now, rather than waiting for the second or third comment, the app will show this stronger message the first time.
With the Hidden Words feature, a user can automatically filter offensive words, phrases and emojis into a Hidden Folder, that a user never has to open if they don’t want to.
It will also filter direct message requests that are likely to be spammy or low-quality and expanded the list of potentially offensive words, hashtags and emojis that will be automatically filtered.
These new features will prove as a needed addition to its recent Hide More Comments feature that hides comments that may be potentially harmful, even if they may not break any rules.
Facebook noted that it will continue to roll out features that help combat abusive content, whether it is racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other type of abuse.
“We will continue to invest in organisations focused on racial justice and equity, and look forward to further partnership with industry, governments and NGOs to educate and help root out hate. This work remains unfinished, and we’ll continue to share updates on our progress,” it said.
