With Instagram’s eagerness to fight against online bullying, the social media platform announced a new feature: a restrict tool that they have been testing since July.
When restricting a user, the comments on your posts can only be visible to you and the commenter. You can choose to enable it or not, and it won’t notify them either. Restricted users are also not allowed to see your status or if you’ve read their messages. The messages they’ll send will be automatically added to your direct message requests.
Basically, you control which comments you want to be visible to you and your followers.
It’s good that social media platforms like Instagram are taking a stand on bullying and actually doing something about it. Although blocking people is already normal, there is a study that says that those who block others are known to be “self-consumed or absorbed,” says psychoanalyst Steve Mckeown. It can also make things worse. With this Restrict tool, people can protect themselves without going through the “blocking” or “unfollowing” of followers.
This year, Instagram is also working on a new tool that “uses artificial intelligence to tell users when a comment could be considered offensive before it’s posted.” This tool can help people think about their comments first to filter out offensive ones.
The social media platform also defined what it views as bullying last May to cultivate a safe environment and to advance their efforts on controlling bullies on Instagram.
How do you guys think this feature will play out?
[CNN]
Photo by Unsplash
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