The rise of social media platforms and connectivity has also brought along a surge in online bullying, trolling and the culture of hate. We have all seen the vapid comments on popular accounts and pages that creep up below the original posts. These comments are mostly by empty accounts, who seem to have created a profile for the sole purpose of spewing negativity, under the insurance of anonymity. More often than not, physical appearance and perceived character of social media users are attacked, leading to drastic consequences.
Instagram has recently rolled out an anti-bullying tool on its platform to tackle derisive comments. In a blog post, Adam Mosseri—the current head of Instagram—announced the release of a feature that aims to make the users rethink before posting a comment on the platform. “We can do more to prevent bullying from happening on Instagram, and we can do more to empower the targets of bullying to stand up for themselves. Today we’re announcing one new feature in both areas”, Mosseri writes.
With the recent update, before posting these kinds of remarks, Instagram asks the users to rethink the wording of the sentence. The enhanced filter identifies potentially offensive words and phrases, particularly those concerning physical appearance and mental capabilities. This feature, powered by artificial intelligence, detects remarks that resemble those previously reported by other users. This gives the public an opportunity to pause, reflect and undo potentially hurtful actions. This feature is in addition to the comment filter that the app released last month. This employed machine learning to parse the language used, understand the context of a particular comment and filter them accordingly. For example, a sentence filled with expletives may not necessarily be offensive, while a sentence composed of neutral words could have malicious intent. This system, known as DeepText, proved to be effective in policing hostile remarks on the social media platform.
Adam Mosseri also announced plans for an additional tool named ‘Restrict’. This comes from the understanding that directly blocking users might do more harm than good. This move might cause serious repercussions, especially if the person has to interact with the bully outside the internet. According to his blog post, ‘Restrict’ enables users to hide hurtful comments, without notifying the offender. To a user who has been ‘Restricted’, the comments would be visible only to themselves. “Restricted people won’t be able to see when you’re active on Instagram or when you’ve read their direct messages”, Mosseri adds. The recent measure is a welcome step in the mission against cyber bullying in social media.
