Security

Instagram’s “Anti-Abuse” Comment Filters

Social media has been an exciting trend that has escalated exponentially in the past decade. However, cyberbullying has been a negative byproduct to this social media explosion. There have been a multitude of horror stories regarding kids doing harmful things to themselves and to their peers as a result of cyberbullying.

Instagram is taking a large bound towards mitigating the cyberbullying crisis that occurs daily in their social media outlet. Instagram has recently launched a setting that allows users to tailor their own profanity filter. Users can now manually enter words they do not want to appear on their page. This is an excellent way to avoid trolls or the other negativity that swarms social media.

While this new feature is available for celebrities and high profile accounts, standard Instagram accounts won’t get to experience the same privilege for a few weeks. Obviously, swear words are extremely common to ban, especially if it’s a kid-friendly Instagram account. However, several users have chosen to ban political words, such as Trump or Clinton.

Nicky Jackson Colaco, Instagram’s head of Public Policy, said that she wanted to avoid a blanket ban on certain words because she wants users to be able to exercise their right of free expression. On the same page, she wants Instagram to be a safe zone for users who are more sensitive to harsh language.

As a result, this user-friendly filter is an excellent way to bridge the gap between a safe environment and freedom of speech.

It will be interesting to see if other social media networks decide to take this same path. It seems as if Facebook and Twitter would be more prone to implement this type of policy, as their networks are much larger and likely attract much more harassment and vitriol. However, it is nice to see Instagram is taking a step in the right direction in terms of minimizing online harassment.

Instagram has been under some scrutiny lately because of its similarity to Snapchat. Specifically, their new “stories” system is similar to Snapchat’s story system in terms of name and function. Both allow their users to post a photo for their followers to see for 24 hours. Despite this criticism, Instagram is certainly taking a large step in protecting our youth from harmful cyberbullying.

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