Following April's F8 keynote, where Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that there would be forthcoming anti-bullying features on the app, Instagram is rolling out new measures to promote online safety — particularly for teens, who Mosseri said in his announcement yesterday are "less likely to report online bullying even when they are the ones who experience it the most."
The first: an AI-powered feature that notifies users that their comment might be offensive before it's posted, with the prompt: "Are you sure you want to post this?" The user can then undo the comment before the recipient sees it.
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"From early tests of this feature, we have found that it encourages some people to undo their comment and share something less hurtful once they have had a chance to reflect," said Mosseri.
Instagram is also revamping its blocking options. While you can always block, report, or mute an account that you don't wish to interact with, for some these options aren't enough. Mosseri said that Instagram received feedback from young users that "they’re reluctant to block, unfollow, or report their bully because it could escalate the situation, especially if they interact with their bully in real life."
So Instagram is testing out a new feature called Restrict, which will render comments by restricted accounts visible only to those accounts — and not the recipient of the comments or other users, unless approved by the recipient first. Additionally, restricted users can't see when you're online or if you've read their DMs.
Instagram has had an offensive-comment filter in place since 2017, and last year announced a bullying filter targeting comments that attack someone's appearance or character, or that threaten their well-being. At April's keynote, Mosseri also floated the idea of hiding like and follower counts to make the environment even less pressurised for its users.