Instagram has new safety feature to turn off comments, DMs from non-followers

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This is Bukayo Saka, one of the British soccer players who was subject to racist abuse online

Last month, Black British soccer players Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, and Jadon Sancho were racially harassed on social media after missing their penalty kicks during the Euro 2020, costing England the trophy. Earlier this week Twitter released an analysis showing that the bulk of the racist abuse came from the UK. Other than suspending accounts, Twitter hasn’t done much to address this. They stated that 99% of suspended accounts were identifiable and that ID verification wouldn’t have prevented it. Instagram is also attempting to reduce abusive comments and DMs on its platform. Instagram announced that they recently implemented a feature called “limits” which “limits” those who don’t follow you, or who have recently followed you, from leaving comments on your posts. Instagram already implemented another feature called “hidden words” back in April which allow users to filter DMs with abusive words. Below are a few more details from The Verge:

Among them is something called “limits.” Turning this on prevents anyone who doesn’t follow you, or who recently followed you, from commenting or sending a DM. The feature is available to everyone globally today, and Instagram points out that it’ll likely be most useful to businesses and creators who expect a flurry of responses. Of course, turning comments or DMs off entirely would also work, but Instagram says this is a solution for people who still want the possibility of positively engaging with their community. The company says it’s also “exploring ways” to preemptively suggest that people turn this feature on when it detects a spike in activity.

Additionally, Instagram is building out its hidden words feature that launched in April, which allows people to automatically filter DMs with offensive words, phrases, and emoji, relegating them to a hidden folder. The feature now has a wider list of potentially offensive words, emoji, and hashtags. And finally, the app is issuing sterner warnings to people who try to post offensive comments. (This type of messaging already existed but only appeared if someone attempted to post multiple times.)

“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,” the company writes in a press release. “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.”

[From The Verge]

I swear these social media platforms are doing absolutely f*ck all about abuse on their platforms. Is Instagram joking with these silly features? I’ll admit the features will weed some of the abuse but it really isn’t enough. Every account needs to be verified as a real person and not a bot. Those who are spewing abuse on social media should suffer real consequences, like having their posts turned over to authorities. Folks need to fear behaving poorly in a public forum will lead to terrible outcomes. I personally feel that our laws need to catch up to the digital age. Expecting people on social media to regulate themselves will never lead to real change. Companies make a sh*t ton of profits from the spreading of hate.

These features filter out abuse from people who don’t follow YOU. There should be a setting to limit comments on Instagram to accounts you follow, similar to how Twitter lets you set tweets to only accept comments from people you follow. Of course we can also be bullied by people we follow, but this would be a good start. I guess I should be happy that Instagram has put these two features into place. But I continue to get DMs from people I don’t know digital cat calling me. And I still see way too many abusive messages on Instagram and Twitter. All of these platforms need to do better, full stop.

Our data suggests that ID verification would have been unlikely to prevent the abuse from happening – as of the permanently suspended accounts, 99% of account owners were identifiable.

— Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) August 10, 2021

Today we’re announcing three updates to protect people from racism and abuse on Instagram. We don’t allow hate speech or bullying on our platform, and we hope these new tools will help protect people from having to experience abuse.

— Adam Mosseri ? (@mosseri) August 11, 2021