Instagram Officially Launches The Anti-Racism And Harassment Feature On Its Platform With The Limits Feature

WHILE INSTAGRAM

JAKARTA - Instagram's new feature to prevent racism and hate has officially launched. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri through his IGTV previously announced plans to launch this new feature.

The Limits feature helps protect users when experiencing or anticipating unwanted spikes in comments and Direct Messages (DM). Mosseri admitted that he and his team developed this feature because they heard that creators and public figures sometimes experience sudden spikes in comments and DM requests from unknown accounts.

"For example, when an athlete goes viral after winning an Olympic medal, sometimes it is also followed by a spike in unwanted comments and messages. This feature was created as a form of our support for the athlete to protect their experience on Instagram", Mosseri said in the official Instagram blog Thursday, August 12.

"If you are currently experiencing something similar or feel that it will happen in the near future, you can activate the Limits feature and avoid unwanted experiences", he added.

With this feature, Instagram will limit the comment field and DM users from scathing, racist, sexist, homophobic comments. For this reason, users, especially public figures, can continue to interact with fans without having to turn off the comments or DM fields.

Not only that, but Instagram also presents a feature that can hide hate speech in DMs. Mosseri calls it a Hidden Words feature, users can automatically filter offensive words, phrases, and emojis into the Hidden Bar folder. Filtered words include messages from Stories replies.

“We recognize that we still have a lot of work to do, including improving our systems to find and remove hateful content more quickly and follow up on the accounts that posted that content. We continue to be committed to doing everything we can to fight hate speech content on our services", said Mosseri.