Instagram Rolls Out New Updates To Protect Younger Users Including A Useful ‘Limits’ Feature

Meta’s Instagram has been making more efforts than before to ensure its younger user community remains safer than ever while using the platform.

Instagram launched two new features which are designed keeping one thing in mind: enhanced security and privacy of teenagers.

The feature in the discussion that caught our eye is ‘Limits’ which was at first only up for grabs to those having creator accounts. In case you’re wondering if this was launched on the app before or not, the answer is yes.

We saw the popular app give rise to the same feature for celebs in 2021. During that time, the aim was to give famous personalities more protection who tend to be more abused than the rest of us online.

At that time, it was more in regards to protecting British soccer players who continued to be criticized after losing the 2020 championship title.

Now, we can confirm how the access is undergoing an expansion so that teenagers can benefit from getting more space, far away from anything that’s abusive in nature.

Instagram explained more in detail including how it’s got plenty of rules in place that protect against the likes of bullying or harassment on the app. They also have the right technology in place to rid posts of this kind.

Sometimes, some posts don’t end up breaking rules and therefore are allowed to function on the app. If that’s the case, the platform feels the younger lot are more prone to be targeted and manipulated so to prevent that, this feature comes in handy.

For the app, content really does matter so much, and therefore bullying is on the rise. If and when done, it could be on a personal level and therefore end up impacting so many teens, resulting in drastic consequences.

With the right limits in place, teenagers would experience limited exposure to various comments from different individuals who are strangers. Only those interactions would be shown that arise from contacts added to ‘close friends’.

After turning on the Limits feature, Instagram adds how users would only see comments, tags, and DMs arising from their close friends list. If you’re not on the Close Friends list, then you can interact with users regularly but the account holder can’t see them and at the same time, the person making the interaction would have no idea that they’re being restricted.

The goal is to help ensure teenagers get the best possible interaction by ensuring the right distance arises in certain chats when things get too overwhelming.

Remember, comments will still arise on posts so don’t think of it as something that blocks engagement. It’s just a sigh of relief from negativity that’s useful for users.

Meanwhile, Instagram also mentioned how it’s expanding the Restrict feature which can now enable teens to take action on certain profiles without blocking.

So after restricting people, you aren’t only hiding comments but limiting the chance of being added to a mention in their posts.

We can see how such a rollout is designed to better combat offenses pertaining to online bullying. You aren’t just disguising comments but you’re removing the chance of the user from engaging with you directly across different posts.

Now the only drawback that we can come up with in this regard is how users can continue to talk about anyone amongst themselves. And that again could instill harm to young minds. Still, expanded tools could give rise to more ways to better produce and manage the user’s experience on the app.

For a while now, Instagram has been talking about how hard it’s been working to ensure the protection of its younger user community and this is proof of just that. Remember, the company has been subject to a lot of investigations in the past and more right now in terms of how much harm it has on young minds.

We’ve also seen the app’s head testify in front of Congress about how his app could negatively affect youngsters and what the company is doing to ensure that does not happen.

But Instagram has always vowed to do more and launch greater efforts on this front to better combat all such problems because it has always taken user safety seriously.

We also saw the platform roll out more effort for combatting sextortion on the platform which arises in the form of scams that restrict exposure for content designed to cause self-harm.

But with that being said, the app is limited in many situations in terms of what else it can do to ensure safety and better control users’ experience on the platform.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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