Instagram announces new features to protect from abuse, inappropriate content

Meta-owned platform Instagram has announced new enhancements to protect users and creators from hate speech and abusive language.

As per the reports, improved blocking options, Hidden Words updates, and more are among the new features.

“When you block someone, you can now also block any other accounts they may have or create, making it more difficult for them to interact with you on Instagram,” Instagram said in a blog post.

For users with more than 10,000 followers, Instagram introduced the Hidden Words feature, which provides them with a powerful tool for automatically filtering harmful content from comments and message requests.

Instagram will now automatically enable this feature for creator accounts, and they can create a custom list of words, phrases, and emojis to hide. The company has confirmed that the feature now supports new languages, including Farsi, Turkish, Russian, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil.

In addition, Instagram is also adding nudges to make people think before posting hurtful comments or message requests. A new notification will encourage people to pause before responding to a comment our systems think is offensive. These nudges are now available for apps in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Chinese, or Arabic.

These enhancements to the application will start rolling out globally in the coming weeks, the company said.