What you need to know
- Instagram's latest updates aims at improving its safety measures for the platform.
- The social media app has expanded its blocking feature to include blocking any existing accounts a troublesome users has created, as well.
- The Hidden Words update helps to keep offensive comments away from your sight while also gaining improved filtering for scam and spam messages.
- Nudges expands into the comments section and user DMs.
Instagram's latest update clues us into how it's mixing in additional measures to ensure its users remain safe on its platform.
Instagram is one of the best Android apps for social media and with that comes a massive flood of people. The Meta-owned company knows this can lead to some nasty interactions, which is why safety is the driving force behind its recent update.
The social media platform begins by making a slight change to its blocking mechanism. Instagram already provides users with a way to block a person and any new accounts they could create. With its updated form, users can now block existing accounts that the person causing you trouble may have.
Instagram is also updating Hidden Words. This feature allows users to turn on a filter that automatically removes harmful content in their comments or messages. While the platform reports that more than one in five creators on Instagram with more than 10,000 followers have turned the feature on, they are now testing automatically making Hidden Words active for creator accounts.
Instagram also states that it's keeping the ability to turn Hidden Words on or off for all users.
The social media app will continue to build on Hidden Words in the future, beginning with expanding its coverage to include Story replies. Offensive replies will be kept out of the comments section and sent directly to your Hidden Requests folder, so they never see the light of day, at least until you decide to check that folder. Hidden Words will also gain support for additional languages such as Farsi, Turkish, Russian, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil.
Hidden Words will also gain a more accurate filter to spot intentional misspellings of a word. Instagram will also look to add newer terms to filter message requests that may contain scams or spam. This will begin for English speakers in certain countries before Instagram branches out.
Lastly, Instagram is looking to build upon "nudges," a way of helping people become more aware of the content they view and the amount o time they spend on the app. As the platform brings in more nudges, users will see a notification that will encourage them to take a beat and think about how they'd like to respond to a comment when its system deems it to be too offensive.
This feature is now live for English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Arabic speakers.
The nudges feature has also made its way into DMs when a message request is sent to a creator. This works the same as it does in the comments section, prompting the user to reconsider how they're about to say what they're thinking. This new feature for Nudges in DMs will roll out globally in the coming weeks.
