The social network is taking cases of harassment seriously and has notified today that it is working on adding a new feature in its app that notifies people before they post their comments that it can be considered offensive. A kind of “warning of comments” that does not block messages but works to dissuade people from writing them.
As stated by Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, “this intervention gives people the opportunity to reflect and undo their comments and prevents the recipient from receiving notification of harmful comments. ” And, the first tests they have done have been successful because they led people to delete their comments.
The operation is simple. After a person writes a hurtful comment, the app will interrupt you with a warning saying: “Are you sure you want to publish this? it will be comfortable for young people because according to Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, he has published in his profile “young people tell us that they hesitate to block, stop following or denounce stalkers because it could make their situation worse. ”
“It is our responsibility to create a secure environment on Instagram. This has been an important priority for us for some time, and we continue to invest to better understand and address this problem,” says Mosseri.
In addition, in a few weeks, Instagram will launch a new feature called Restrict to help users protect their accounts from unwanted interactions. This function will allow you to block the comments, likes and direct messages of a person, these being only visible for that person or for the rest but not for the person who owns the account. Locked people will also not be able to see when you are online on Instagram or if you have read their messages or not.