Instagram has shared an important update on their suite of user safety tools and community policies designed to protect users from abuse on the platform. The changes include new ways to protect people from seeing abusive DMs and the ability to prevent people who have already blocked a user from contacting them through a new account.
The newly announced safety tools and features now available on Instagram not only allow users to protect themselves from exposure to unwanted, explicit, or abusive messages; they also offer the opportunity for users to protect their community from problematic content as well.
We understand the impact that abusive content - whether it's racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other kind of abuse - can have on people. Nobody should have to experience that on Instagram.
Instagram Blog
One of the new additions to Instagram's suite of safety tools is a feature that will automatically filter DM requests containing offensive words, phrases, and emojis so users never have to see them. This tool focuses on DM requests because this is where people usually receive abusive messages, unlike the regular DM inbox, where users receive messages from friends.
It will work in a similar way to the comment filters Instagram already offers, which allow users to hide offensive comments and choose what terms they don't want people to use in comments under their posts. Access to both comment and DM request filters can be found in a dedicated section of Instagram's Privacy Settings titled "Hidden Words."
The recent update from Instagram is an important opportunity for users to learn about and use the safety tools available to them. Using these features to tailor what people and their communities are experiencing online will play a huge part in helping to reduce the visibility and impact of online abuse and hate speech.
Dan Raisbeck, Co-founder, The Cybersmile Foundation
Another change that has been announced as part of the update makes it much harder for someone who a user has already blocked to contact them again through a new account. This means that whenever a user decides to block someone on Instagram, they will have the option to block their account and preemptively block new accounts that person may create in the future.
We're committed to doing everything we can to fight hate and racism on our platform, but we also know these problems are bigger than us. We look forward to working with other companies, football associations, NGOs, governments, parents and educators, both on and offline.
Instagram Statement
As more conversations increasingly take place through private DMs, Instagram's latest move takes a further step in helping users filter potentially abusive messages, providing an additional layer of security for more vulnerable internet users.