Negative comments will get automatically hidden from now onwards on Instagram and the step has been taken by the platform to decrease bullying and harassment.
Instagram has been testing the feature from the last few days and said that they would target comments reported as inappropriate by users. Users can click ‘View Hidden Comments’ button to see a negative comment that has been covered.
Instagram explained that when a user writes an offensive comment, a pop-up message will appear before the comment is posted which would say ‘This may go against our guidelines’. The pop-up will send a notification to users that if they post a negative comment, it might get hidden and Instagram might investigate whether to delete the user’s comment.
The new warnings will let people think for a second to step back and look back on the words they have written and lay out the consequences before they proceed. While launching comment warning, Instagram saw the idea of reminding people regarding the consequences of bullying and providing feedback as they write the comment which they consider as an effective way to shift behaviour.
Instagram has not said anything on what kind of language or comments will get hidden. Posts and comments which are pornographic, praise organized crime and threaten physical harm will get automatically deleted by Instagram.
Instagram is hoping to decrease the number of inappropriate comments, but on the other hand, Facebook was criticized this year for its way of handling hate speech. NAACP and civil rights groups said in the month of July that Facebook has not done anything to ban and delete posts about vaccine misinformation, White supremacy and violent conspiracy theories.
20 state attorneys general demanded Facebook to do something more to combat hate speech. The concerns have prompted companies like Adidas, Coca-Cola and Starbucks to boycott Facebook. Facebook recently said that they are investing billions of dollars to keep the hate speech out of their platform and deleted around 22 million negative or harmful posts.