Bullying on social media and the way to intervene amid a problem — or even understand when a problem is occurring — has been an extremely discussed topic in recent years.
Instagram is introducing a brand new feature for which it’s making an
attempt to form artificial intelligence that’s smart enough to notice such
inappropriate behavior.
There are already features in place,
like flagging content
or fully blocking a user, however Francesco Fogu, an Instagram designer who works on well-being, told
Time magazine those might not be
the way people wish to go.
“They are typically seen as very harsh options,”
he said.
And in collecting user analysis,
Instagram reported that
teenagers are additional reluctant
to report or block suspect
bullies. It’s not laborious to understand how raising red flags to an alleged bully could produce even more issues for the user.
Blocking somebody can make that person aware they’ve
been fully removed, however Instagram’s new feature,
Restrict, might have found out the way to make it
less obvious an individual has
been restricted. This could be the right answer for teens that are
reluctant to completely block somebody.
So here’s what happens with the new limit feature.
The suspect bully will have no indication anything has changed. They’ll still be able to see posts from the
user however will no longer see the user online or when the user has read their messages.
Video or image comments.
If the suspect bully comments on a photograph or video posted by the user, the user will be able to approve
it, delete it or just leave
it in a unfinished state. The bully will never even recognize because to him or her, the
comment is visible and appears normal.
But let’s say the user doesn’t even want to know that person has commented on anything. Cue what Instagram calls the
“sensitivity screen,” that permits the user not even see the
unwanted material.
Direct messages.
If the restricted person sends a direct message, the user won’t be notified, and the message will, instead, attend where spam messages go to live and die.
Tagging and finding the user.
Though Instagram usually suggests handles when somebody is making an attempt to tag or
mention someone, the suspect bully won’t get this luxury if
they’re making an attempt to call out the user.
The suspect bully will need to actually know the
user’s full handle and type the whole thing out to even find them to make a tag or mention.
“The goal here is to essentially put some area between you and them,”
Fogu said.
Instagram representatives told Time that although they’re implementing the feature to assist combat bullying, the real hurdle they face is informing users it exists. Due to that, instead of simply sticking information concerning it in settings,
designers and engineers are
attempting to search out way to alert users whereas they’re using Instagram. As an example, if a user is systematically deleting comments
from a specific user,
it could serve as an opportunity for a pop-up to inform them concerning restrict.
Instagram plans to roll out the limit feature to all users by the end of 2019.