Last week, Instagram announced new features in an effort to help curb bullying and trolling within the platform. Instagram’s goal is to lead the industry in the fight against bullying; they continue to create and share their Community Standards Enforcement Report, which tracks their progress in keeping their platform as safe as possible. Based on May’s report, Instagram has implemented the following new features.
Bulk comment removal. Instagram now gives people the option to remove up to 25 comments at a time. This makes it easier for users to manage the comment streams on their posts. While the feature is open to everyone, it will likely be most helpful for creators and influencers with large followings and reach. It can be difficult to manage a rush of negative comments, and this gives users the opportunity to get most of them in one fell swoop. In addition to enabling users to remove comments in bulk, Instagram is also allowing users to block or restrict multiple accounts at once. If the majority of negativity on a user’s account is coming from a small subset of people, it is now easy to remove them from your account.
Highlighting positive comments. Similar to how Twitter lets users pin posts to the top of their page, Instagram now gives users the opportunity to pin a select number of comments to the top of their comment thread. Instagram hopes this will help users set the tone they want for their account and encourage positive interactions.
Choosing who can tag or mention you. Currently, if you have a public Instagram account, a person or account can tag or mention you in their comments, posts or Stories. This has been misused by some as a way to target or bully others. Now, users can manage who can tag or mention them within the platform. They now have the option to allow everyone, allow only people they follow, or allow no one.
The continued focus on making Instagram a safer and happier place should be good news for advertisers. They will have to worry less about any negativity or bullying taking place on posts or Stories they put money behind, as well as any sponsored promotions they do with influencers.