Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, recently confirmed during a live session that the company is currently testing a new feature named ‘Limits’.
The feature would help Instagram users keep them safe during any harassment phase by temporarily locking down their account for a certain period the timing of which users can select as per their situation.
Mentioning the reason why it was needed to be rolled out, Mosseri condemned the recent racism that was massively seen on the platform after the EURO 2020 finale. He further went about the issue that the company was facing earlier when angry fans started making racist comments after their team’s defeat.
Elaborating about the technology error that could not identify the racist comments because most of them were using different emoji, Mosseri explained how difficult it was for the platform to remove all of them since every emoji has different meanings in different places.
And it is for this reason, the AI sometimes marked these comments that should have been removed as benign rather than referring them to human moderators.
Acknowledging the mistake that happening earlier, Mosseri confirmed that the issue is finally fixed now and could target racist comments more accurately.
Mosseri also mentioned a few user-side tools that any user could use to tackle a harassing situation like Block and Restrict. Users can block a user if he/she is continuously troubling them on the platform or can Restrict them which would enable YOU to approve which comment would be seen by users and which not.
That being said, he also stressed on a recent feature called Hidden Words, using which users could prevent other users to use a particular word in their Instagram posts or direct messages.
However…
When it comes to bigger accounts, restricting or blocking hundreds and thousands of users becomes a mess.
And that is the reason, Instagram rolled out ‘Limits’ partially in some selected countries.
As per Matt Navara, a social media consultant, who shared about the feature’s functionality, Limits would recommend groups of accounts that you want to limit comments and messages from.
The limited comments and messages would always be hidden until you approve those.
The feature although hides messages and comments that you limited, it doesn’t affect your reach in the feed and explore as clearly seen in the screenshot shared by Matt.
Limits would enable you with a number of features one of which is limiting comments and messages from accounts that don’t follow you and are merely created to harass.
There also exists a feature to limit comments from recent followers which is super handy as the accounts could have manipulated the platform by following the user first and then posting harassing comments.
However, with this second option users could limit comments from recent followers as well.
The platform also provides you the option to set the timing for which the limit needs to be implemented which the user can select from the given option.
An Instagram spokesperson mentioned that the feature would help people manage “intense instances of harassment or abuse.”
“Maybe you’re in high school and you are going through a breakup or you just switched schools. Or maybe you are a professional footballer and you’re receiving a lot of harassment,” explained Mosseri, when detailing how Limits could be useful in different situations. “Whatever it is, we know that people sometimes are in temporary moments of real risk of pain, and we want to give them tools to protect themselves in those situations,” he added.
Although Instagram didn’t mention any time limit of when it would be globally available, the company seems quite serious about the issue considering Mosseri’s statements during the live.
By the way, what do you think about this new feature?
Have you ever faced any harassing situations on the platform?
Let me know about it in the comments down below.
And please do share this article if you found this helpful.
Till then?
See you next time!
Bye-bye.
P.S.- Also subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss any updates!