In a year of several changes for Instagram, such as introducing a timeline algorithm and allowing 60-second videos, the social media network’s newest feature may become its most important. Besides letting users filter their photos Instagram will now let users filter the comments they get on those photos reportedThe Washington Post.
"Our goal is to make Instagram a friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe place for self expression," Instagram's head of public policy, Nicky Jackson Colaco, toldThe Washington Post in a statement. "We have slowly begun to offer accounts with high volume comment threads the option to moderate their comment experience. As we learn, we look forward to improving the comment experience for our broader community."
The feature will allow users to filter comments based on words or phrases they flag as unacceptable. TechCrunchreported Instagram made this feature available to business pages less than a month ago. In an Instagram settings screenshot TechCrunch posted a "Moderate Comments" button appears, and below it reads "Block comments with words or phrases often reported as offensive from appearing on your posts." And if that's just too much work you don't want to deal with you can just turn off comments on posts.
As Jackson Colaco said the feature will first be available to bigger accounts like those belonging to celebrities before it reaches all users. Instagram declined to comment when The Washington Post asked if the feature was used on Taylor Swift's account after her comments were bombarded with snake emojis once Kim Kardashian released video of the phone call where Taylor Swift approved Kanye West's "Famous" lyric about her on National Snake Day.
ALL OF TAYLOR SWIFT'S COMMENTS ON INSTAGRAM ARE SNAKE EMOJIS OMG pic.twitter.com/q8iK5vm1KC
The feature will definitely be easier than individually reporting comments for abusive content, especially for celebrities.
