One of the biggest concerns that social media platforms have grappled with over the past several years is the rising tide of bullying on their platforms.
Not only is this a plague that impacts every user, but also it could have a negative impact on a company’s bottom line.
That’s why companies like Facebook have implemented various strategies to curb the abuse of users on their platforms, the latest of which is a ban on accounts that utilize direct messaging as an avenue for further bullying and abuse.
From Instagram’s blog: “The abuse we’re seeing is happening a lot in people’s Direct Messages (DMs), which is harder to address than comments on Instagram. Because DMs are for private conversations, we don't use technology to proactively detect content like hate speech or bullying the same way we do in other places. But there are still more steps we can take to help prevent this type of behavior. So today we’re announcing some new measures, including removing the accounts of people who send abusive messages, and developing new controls to help reduce the abuse people see in their DMs.”
This comes after the company made shadow bans a thing as well as a range of other tools we have discussed on this blog.
As of today, users that abuse someone else via direct messaging will have their accounts banned:
“Today, we’re announcing that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs. Currently, when someone sends DMs that break our rules, we prohibit that person from sending any more messages for a set period of time. Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account. We’ll also disable new accounts created to get around our messaging restrictions, and will continue to disable accounts we find that are created purely to send abusive messages.”
What do you think of Instagram’s new policy change? Will it help curb bullying and abusive behavior? Let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments.
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