Instagram introduced other tools designed to combat hate speech

Social network users often face bullying by other users. The Instagram platform tries to protect its users and actively fights against such behavior. Today, on her blog, she presented other ways in which she will try to reduce hate speech.

How Instagram fights hate speech and bullying

Instagram rules do not tolerate any hate speech against other users. These rules were strengthened last year by banning other forms of hate speech.

In its contribution, the company writes that between July and September last year it hit 6.5 million hate speech, of which 95% was found before anyone reported it.

Instagram has a number of tools that offer users the ability to protect themselves. Using comment filters can prevent other users from leaving inappropriate comments below their post. Last year, Instagram introduced a new feature that allows users to manage multiple unwanted comments at once – whether it’s bulk deletion or bulk blocking of accounts they’ve posted.

Private messages are problematic

Hateful or annoying content that appears on the platform is often sent through private messages. These are more difficult to detect and delete than, for example, hateful comments. DMs are for private conversations, and Instagram does not use technology to proactively detect malicious content in the same way as elsewhere.

Below you will find a list of measures that Instagram introduced today in an effort to help reduce the number of hate messages sent. Currently, business and author accounts have the ability to turn off DM from people they don’t follow. Users of personal accounts will soon get this feature as well.

Stricter penalties for users who send hate messages

If someone sends messages that violate Instagram rules, the platform will prohibit them from sending messages for a certain period of time. If the user continues to post after this ban expires, their account will be deactivated. New accounts created to circumvent this ban will also be disabled. Instagram will also continue to delete accounts that were created just to send unwanted messages.

Instagram will also cooperate with the police

Instagram has undertaken to cooperate with the British police in the investigation of hate speech and will provide them with information on the basis of legal requests. However, these requests must not be in conflict with current legislation and must not violate human rights.