The Instagram Initiative Against Bullying

Instagram is the second-largest social media platform in the world. At the moment, it has over one billion monthly active users that spend time on the app every single day. But, here’s the thing, a great percentage of Instagram’s users are actually young people. Teenagers from the ages of 16 to 18.

Now, here’s why we mention this. Unfortunately, lots of teenagers suffer from bullying on Instagram. And so far, there has been nothing anyone could do about it. It only takes about five minutes of going through the comments of someone’s post to realise there are some very mean people on the platform. 

These people are those who don’t really care about hurting someone’s feelings. Moreover, this ends up creating social anxiety and drives lots of teenagers to feel bad about themselves. But, what’s even more shocking is that about 42% of all the cyberbullying there is, happens on Instagram. So, what is the platform doing to prevent this?

Instagram Initiative Against Bullying

So, Instagram has finally come up with a solution to reduce bullying from the platform. You see, the photo-sharing app is now testing two new tools designed to stop bullies from hurting other users’ feelings. So, for instance, let’s imagine that you want to post an offensive comment on someone’s photo. 

Instagram will stop you from doing that and then pop the question: “Are you sure you want to post this?” Moreover, a pop-up message will appear letting users know the goal of this new feature. And it goes like this:

Keeping Instagram a supportive place – “We are asking people to rethink comments that seem similar to others that have been reported”. Now, here’s the thing, Instagram users can still decide to post the offensive comments they want regardless of the social media app asking them not to. 

So, what’s the point then? Well, we’re glad you asked. You see, Instagram is also testing a new tool called “Restrict” that will stop bullies once and for all. Unfortunately, lots of teenagers don’t feel confident enough to confront their bullies on social media, let alone to block them. And that’s where this new feature will come in handy.

Restrict will allow users to select a bully and simply block their comments. But, the good side is that bullies will never know they’ve been blocked. As a matter of fact, they will be able to comment whatever they want, but the user who blocked them will not see that comment. Only the bully will. Effective, don’t you think?

Wrapping Up

Instagram’s new boss, Adam Mosseri, was sorry to hear there were tons of teenagers suffering from bullying on the platform. So, he decided to make some changes, and implemented a plan to release new features that will stop cyberbullying as we know it. 

However, both tools are still in the testing process. So, it might take some time for Instagram to actually make them available. Whatever the case is, we are happy that the social media app is finally doing something to fight one of the worst problems there is on the internet.