Insta-safe: Best new Instagram features, tools for safety and privacy

Instagram is among the most popular apps worldwide. The photo-video sharing platform is slowly transitioning into various other areas, including a marketplace for creators. The Facebook-owned company is also introducing new tools and features to safeguard the online experience of its users.

Multi-Block:  With this feature, whenever you decide to block someone on Instagram, you will have the option to both block their account and preemptively block new accounts that person may create. This will make it harder for someone who you’ve already blocked from contacting you again through a new account.

Limits - This feature gives people the ability to hide comments and DMs from accounts that are not following them and/or accounts that only followed the user recently. This means someone experiencing an episode of mass or intense harassment can protect themselves in just a few taps while continuing to interact with their long-standing community. People will have the option to decide who to limit (accounts that are not following you and/or recent followers), and how long they are limited for.

Hide public likes: There’s now an option available to you, where you can hide like counts on all posts in your feed. You’ll also have the option to hide like counts on your own posts, so others can’t see how many likes your posts get. This way, if you like, you can focus on the photos and videos being shared, instead of how many likes posts get.

Hidden words to filter abusive messages - Because DMs are private conversations, Instagram doesn't proactively look for hate speech or bullying the same way they do elsewhere on the platform. It has, therefore, introduced a tool that when turned on, will automatically filter DM requests containing offensive words, phrases and emojis, so you never have to see them. This tool focuses on DM requests because this is where people usually receive abusive messages - unlike your regular DM inbox, where you receive messages from friends. You can turn both comment and DM request filters on and off in a new dedicated section of your Privacy Settings called Hidden Words.

Sensitive Content Controls - ​​You can think of ‘sensitive content’ as posts that do not necessarily break Instagram’s Community Guidelines, but could potentially be upsetting to some people – such as posts that may be sexually suggestive or violent. Instagram is giving users control over such content. You can decide to leave things as they are, assuming you are satisfied with your experience today, or you can adjust the Sensitive Content Control (Settings >> Accounts >> Sensitive Content Control) to see more or less of some types of sensitive content. With everyone having different preferences for what they want to see on Explore, this control will give you more choice over what you see.

Defaulting Under-16 accounts to private - Everyone who is under 16 years old in India and joins Instagram will be defaulted to a private account. Private accounts let people control who sees or responds to their content. If you have a private account, people have to follow you to see your posts, Stories and Reels unless you choose to allow others to re-share your content. People also cannot comment on your content in those places, and they will not see your content at all in places like Explore or hashtags. In case you already have a public account on Instagram, there will be a notification highlighting the benefits of a private account and explaining how to change their privacy settings.

'Security Checkup’ for your account - This is a new feature to help people keep their Instagram accounts secure. ‘Security Checkup’ will guide people, whose accounts may have been hacked, through the steps needed to secure them. This includes checking login activity, reviewing profile information, confirming the accounts that share login information and updating account recovery contact information such as phone number or email.

Restricting an account - Restrict allows another user to comment on your posts, but the said comment can’t be viewed by anyone else but you. You can choose to view these comments by tapping “See Comment”; approve the comment so everyone can see it; delete it, or ignore it. You will not receive any notifications for comments from a restricted account. Similarly, you can choose whether to view their messages from the message requests tab and the user will not be able to tell whether you have viewed their message.

Filtering Negative Comments: Instagram enables you to filter comments on your posts by selecting keywords manually or switching on the offensive comments filter. This controls the content that you may not wish to see or be associated with.