CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — It’s been 10 years since Instagram was introduced to the social media world. To celebrate, “The Gram” announced Tuesday new anti-bullying features to kick off National Bullying Prevention Month.
The social media app announced two new features that will “reduce negative interactions, including bullying and harassment, in comments.”
“Bullying is a challenge many face, especially young people who are already dealing with additional pressures brought on by COVID-19. While the world has certainly changed this year, our commitment to leading the industry in the fight against online bullying remains a priority,” said in a post on its website.
In the last few days, Instagram has been testing the first feature that “automatically hides comments similar to others that have been reported.” If the user wants to see the comments they must tap “view hidden comments.”
IG is also expanding it’s comment warning feature which will send an “additional warning when people repeatedly attempt to post potentially offensive comments.” The feature has been tested in select languages.
Instagram says it has seen progress in decreasing negative interactions since rolling out “warnings in comments and captions” a year ago.
Any comments that violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines will continue to be automatically removed from the app.