We needed the Olympics, but better late than never. Is exactly Adam Mosseri, the 38-year-old head of Instagram, candidly admits it in a press release: “Some recent and unpleasant episodes that occurred during the Olympics have put the importance of mental well-being back at the center against pressure and abuse and, with the football championship just starting, we believe that this is the perfect time to share some news.” One of the most used social networks in Italy and in the world, which belongs to the giant Facebook, therefore changes gears and launches three innovations "to help people protect themselves from abuse": the possibility of limiting comments and direct messages during the "peaks of Attention"; even stronger admonishments when people try to post potentially offensive comments; the new Hidden Words feature, which allows people to filter out abusive requests in direct messages.
The first function is called "Limits" and is new because it doesn't limit itself to blocking direct messages (as it has already been possible to do for some time), but can be activated when users suffer or - above all - expect to suffer a wave of offensive comments and messages, as evidently happened to several athletes exposed to the media at the last Tokyo Olympics. Think for example of the young American gymnast Simone Biles, literally targeted by haters after announcing the forfeit for some races following mental problems. Limits allows you to automatically hide the comments not only of people who do not follow the vip of the moment, but also of those who have only recently started following him, perhaps on the emotional wave of an event on which deliberately vent your anger or, let's face it, one's own incivility. “Our research has shown that most of the negativity towards public figures comes from people who don't follow them or are only recently following them,” Instagram's press release confirms.
However, Limiti can be activated starting today, Wednesday 10 August, by everyone, not just the stars. Think of the common episodes of intimidation or bullying also and perhaps above all to the detriment of ordinary people, without the matter jumping to the headlines. As a further deterrent, Instagram will be “bad” at scolding offending users. "Instead of waiting for the second or third inappropriate comment, we will show a stronger warning message on the first attempt", explains the note also issued in Italian by the social network. A test has already been done recently and it seems to have given good results: “In the last week we have shown these warnings about a million times a day to people who were writing potentially offensive comments. Based on these notifications, in approximately 50% of cases the comment was edited or deleted by the user. Still not much, but already a starting point.
Finally, the new Hidden Words mode, which allows you to automatically filter offensive words, phrases and emojis in a hidden folder, which may never be opened. It also filters out direct message requests that may be spam or otherwise annoying. “We launched this function – explains Mosseri – in a number of countries at the beginning of this year and it will be available to everyone globally by the end of this month. We will continue to encourage accounts with large followings to use it by sending messages to their inbox and placing a reminder at the top of Stories. We also recently added a new opt-in option to "Hide other comments" that can be potentially harmful even if they don't break our rules." We have a responsibility to make sure everyone feels safe on Instagram. And we also want protect people in a preventive way".
