Instagram recently released a new ‘Limits’ feature that will take action against the excessive online hatred and abuse directed towards an Instagram account or page. The multi-billion-dollar influencer-focused platform’s product head Adam Mosseri shared the upcoming feature in a blog post on Instagram.
What Was The Need For The Limits Feature On Instagram?
Instagram enjoys excessive action in the influencer community who frequently post updates, brand and promotional content, and interact with their followers on the platform. Over the years, Instagram has witnessed an abrupt surge in online trolling, abuse infliction, and bullying and has consistently worked to keep it contained as much as possible. But even those methods proved to be partiality effective as millions of trolls continue to spam the comment section with hatred-infused abusive sentences and harass the account owner.
The result of this online abuse and bullying is many influencers are now flocking away from the platform because they cannot handle it anymore. It is affecting their business goals and promotions that are mildly effective because of such lingering issues. Also, many influencers have encountered depression phases as the abuse and hatred towards them grows in the community. All these reasons compelled Instagram to take stern action to curb these incidents and maintain the integrity of the platform, which is why the ‘Limits’ feature and the ‘Hidden Words’ feature are being rolled out on the platform.
Instagram Limits Feature
Limits feature is integrated into Instagram and is aimed at preventing unwanted comments and DMs. This feature, when enabled, hides all the comments and DMs that are sent from the users that do not follow you or have only recently begun to follow you. Instagram is slowly becoming a place of spamming comments with links and insulting or abusive words play. Most of these activities are noticed from accounts that recently followed a user and began spamming comments and DMs to the user’s account. Limits feature is going live today and you may navigate to the privacy settings to see it in action. Adam Mosseri also hints that they are working on an automated system that will recommend you turn the Limits feature on whenever the platform witnessed a rapid surge in posts and comments related to a global event.
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Stronger Warnings To Deter Abusive Users
Instagram has a robust warning mechanism in place that tries to warn you every single time you post something that is offensive and goes against the community guidelines. Earlier, it was a simple suggestion followed by a stronger warning in the second and third attempts. Now, the stronger warning is displayed the first time and if the user continues to repeat the abusive comments, their account may be blocked or permanently removed from the platform. Instagram surveyed that the warning message that showed that almost 50 percent of users didn’t proceed to publish their comments after the warning message.
Tackling Abuse In DMs And Comments With The ‘Hidden Words’ Feature
The hidden words feature was released a few months back in select countries but is now being globally rolled out to all Instagram users. The features aim to completely side-line the abuse and hate-mongering which is present in the comments section and DMs. Hidden words have an elaborate collection of words that are considered offensive along with emojis and phrases. It filters out those comments into a separate folder without even asking you twice. You can add new words to be filtered separate collection and also discard spammy DMs that are of low quality and filled with offensive content.
