Instagram has recently announced tougher enforcement measures in an effort to curb the spread of abusive or hateful speech through direct messages.
Currently, people who are reported for sending abuse via DMs on Instagram are prohibited from sending messages for a short period of time, but from now on, first-time offenders will have their accounts suspended, and people who repeatedly send hateful messages will have their accounts deactivated.
This means that any user who has their account disabled for sending abusive messages won't be able to make a new account to get around the ban. Instagram has also stated that they will cooperate with law enforcement when it comes to requests for legal data in cases of hate speech.
Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we'll disable their account. We'll also disable new accounts created to get around our messaging restrictions and will continue to disable accounts we find that are created purely to send abusive messages.
Instagram Statement
The new enforcement update follows a number of recently introduced safety features that Instagram has developed to help users filter out unwanted or abusive interactions. These include comment filters that allow users to tailor conversations and filters to automatically block out specific harmful words or phrases.
There has also been encouraging progress with Instagram's pro-active AI safety feature, designed to automatically detect potentially offensive language that has been previously flagged or identified as abusive and intervenes before potentially offensive messages are sent. Instagram has noted that the number of users changing or deleting posts after receiving the alert means that it is an effective addition to their suite of safety tools.
It is encouraging to see Instagram continuing to protect users from people who are intent on spreading hate and abuse with these tougher enforcement measures in addition to their existing safety tools.
Laura Lewandowski, Chief Policy Officer, The Cybersmile Foundation
With online abuse and hate speech having a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of internet users, Instagram's latest move will ensure that repeated offenders cannot exploit the platform to continue to harass other users. These preventative measures, among others, are likely to reduce the number of incidents of abuse and improve the overall experience.