Today, public figures, celebrities and others with a large Instagram following can breathe a sigh of relief following Instagram’s latest announcement.
“Hidden Words” is a new feature that the social media giant has brought in to combat offensive or harmful messages sent to people through direct messages. When turned on, the hidden words feature will filter harmful messages as it has been programmed to seek out certain harmful words, phrases and emojis. If the filter catches a harmful or offensive message it will automatically move the message into a separate folder where the recipient can delete it without ever seeing it.
Over the years, Instagram has been actively seeking out new ways to stop online “trolling”. In 2018 the filters for comments were expanded to seek out and hide comments that attack a persons personal appearance.
Alongside the new feature, Instagram are now giving their users the ability to block people entirely from contacting them, even if the person has made a new profile. Instagram hasn’t said how exactly they’re able to do that but if it works then it’s a massive step in the right direction towards an Insta safe space.
The new features will be rolled out over the coming weeks, first to a certain few countries then the world.
