Instagram is stepping up its game on combatting harassment.
According to a Monday morning blog post by CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom, the Facebook-owned (FB) photo app will now let users filter comments using words they themselves find offensive. He writes:
Now, when you tap the gear icon on your profile, you’ll find a new Comments tool. This feature lets you list words you consider offensive or inappropriate. Comments with these words will be hidden from your posts. You can choose your own list of words or use default words we’ve provided. This is in addition to the tools we’ve already developed such as swiping to delete comments, reporting inappropriate comments and blocking accounts.
The move is an attempt to “promote a culture where everyone feels safe to be themselves without criticism or harassment,” writes Systrom.
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Instagram’s move comes at a time when social media platforms—notably Twitter (TWTR)—are receiving increasing criticism for failing to take action against online harassment. Most recently, the company received negative press for the way it handled the harassment of actress Leslie Jones.
Back in July, after the Ghostbusters premiere, Jones faced an avalanche of abuse from Twitter users. She attempted to bring the comments to light by retweeting them and imploring Twitter to help. Eventually, Jones announced that she would leave the platform.
I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart.All this cause I did a movie.You can hate the movie but the shit I got today…wrong
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) July 19, 2016
Jones returned to Twitter a few days later, and Twitter did eventually permanently ban Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannapolous for his abuse of her, but the company has nevertheless been criticized for going after prominent bad actors but not doing enough to stop abuse by accounts that don’t have a high public profile or get as much attention.
At the time it removed Yiannapolous, the social network said, “We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders.”
Users, however, are not buying Twitter’s stance that it is “investing” in tools, arguing that the speed with which it shut down tweets with Olympics content back in August proves that it is more than capable of monitoring and taking down offensive content.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Coins2Day will update this story if and when it does.
