Instagram to Come Down Harder on Abuse via Direct Message

Instagram is taking steps to crack down on people who use Direct messages for abusive purposes. The platform said in a blog post Wednesday, “The abuse we’re seeing is happening a lot in people’s DMs, which is harder to address than comments on Instagram. Because DMs are for private conversations, we don't use technology to proactively detect content like hate speech or bullying the same way we do in other places. But there are still more steps we can take to help prevent this type of behavior.” The Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing network’s policy had been to prohibit people who send DMs that run counter to its rules from sending any more messages for a set time period. Starting Wednesday, users who continue to send violating messages face the risk of seeing their accounts disabled, along with new accounts that are created to get around those restrictions. Instagram said it will continue to disable accounts that it finds are created strictly for the purposes of sending abusive messages. Business and creator accounts have the option to turn off DMs from people they don’t follow, and Instagram said it began rolling this feature out to personal accounts in several countries, with the aim of taking it global soon. The platform added, “As recent conversations with our community have made all too clear, we recognize that seeing abusive DMs in the first place takes a toll. We’re currently working on a new feature designed to help with this very issue, which will incorporate feedback from our community. We hope to launch it in the coming months.” Instagram also addressed a specific issue involving racist abuse targeted at soccer players in the U.K., writing, “We’re committed to doing everything we can to fight hate and racism on our platform, but we also know these problems are bigger than us. We look forward to working with other companies, football associations, nongovernmental organizations, governments, parents and educators, both on and offline.” The platform added that it will continue to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in the U.K. on hate speech and respond to valid requests for information, saying, “As we do with all requests from law enforcement, we’ll push back if they’re too broad, inconsistent with human rights or not legally valid.” Instagram said it took action on 6.5 million pieces of hate speech between July and September 2020, including in DMs, with 95% of it detected before being reported by users.

Chat & Messaging

Instagram to Come Down Harder on Abuse via Direct Message

Violators face disabling of their accounts

David Cohen

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