Four Powerful Ways To Make Instagram Avoid Annoying Users

JAKARTA - Over time, Instagram has developed into a one-stop social network complete with Snapchat-style Stories, and TikTok-style Reels. Likewise with Direct Message (DM) which is easy to reach by anyone.

With DMs on Instagram, it's easier for users to connect or chat with friends and family, meaning that anyone can contact you.

There's an easy way to control who can contact you, whether it's in DMs or in other Instagram features like Stories and comments. Here are four powerful ways to keep your Instagram account safe from annoying users.

Choose Public or Private Account

If your Instagram account is public, anyone on the platform can see your posts and Stories, unless the Stories are for close friends only, and anyone can message you directly.

Anyone can like and comment on the photos and videos in your feed, regardless of whether they follow you or not. If you are bothered by this, switching to a Private account will make your Instagram much more limited.

By changing your account to Private, new followers must be approved by you and only followers can see your photos, videos and Stories. Likewise only followers can like and comment on your posts.

In the case of DMs, people who don't follow you or who you don't follow can also still send you messages, but will go to the Requests tab. If you want to reply, you need to approve the message.

To switch between Public or Private accounts in the Instagram app, tap your account icon, then the menu button. Select Settings and Privacy, and you will see there is a Private account option at the top of the menu, use this to change the status of your account.

Protect your DM

Open your DMs in the Instagram app, tap on the paper airplane icon in the top right corner and you'll see incoming messages from people you follow or who you've added to your close friends list. Messages from other people on Instagram appear under the Requests tab.

To view incoming messages from people you haven't connected with. You have three options, Receive message, Delete message, or Block user. That's the default way of handling messages sent to your inbox.

To change this, open the Settings screen again within the Instagram app and select Privacy and Messages. You can decide whether messages from people you don't follow go to the Requests tab or don't appear at all.

Apart from that, you can also control whether or not you can be added to group chats on Instagram by users who are not connected to you. By default, anyone on Instagram can add you to group chats, but you can change it to only people you're currently following.

Limit Comments and Who Can Mention You

Instagram gives you control over who can comment on and like the photos and videos you upload. From Settings, select Privacy and Comments, then you can decide who is allowed to comment on your posts.

You will be presented with options, everyone, people you follow, people who follow you, or people you follow or who follow you. You can also block certain users from leaving comments.

Finally, you can select Limits from the Privacy menu to temporarily block unwanted comments and messages from certain users, such as people who don't follow you or who have recently started following you.

With this capability, Instagram says it can help users avoid harassment, and the ban can be enforced for up to four weeks.

Block and Restrict Annoying Users

If you restrict other users, they won't be able to see when you're online or whether you've read their messages or not. New comments they leave on your uploads will only be visible to you, and must be manually approved before they can be seen by others. You will also not receive notifications for comments from that user.

Not only that, blocked users can't mention you, tag you, or leave likes and comments on your posts. They won't be able to message you, or vice versa, although previous chats will remain in your inbox unless you delete them.

Those users will also not be notified if you restrict or block them, they may realize with them they can't contact you anymore.

There is also a mute option for people you follow. From their profile, tap Following, then Mute. You can stop seeing their posts or their Stories from appearing in your various feeds. Thus quoted from Wired, Monday, April 18.