It's no secret that cyberbullying and harassment take place on social media platforms. In instances of celebrities, these cases of harassment can even make headlines, usually, due to the harshness of comments. There are countless examples of cyberbullying via social media, from backlash towards Gabby Douglas during the Rio Olympics to attacks against Leslie Jones's race, gender, weight and everything in between. Instagram hopes to combat and minimize these attacks by implementing a keyword filtering feature.
In a statement released on Sept. 12, the co-founders of Instagram detailed this new feature along with their hopes and expectations regarding minimizing cyberbullying on their platform. The culture of online commenting is complicated, on one hand, the argument centers around the topic of social media harassment. The argument claims that censoring comments is an infringement on free speech. The new feature does its best to toe the line between the two arguments by allowing individual users to choose what they find offensive, therefore not allowing the comment to be posted in the first place.
The tool can be found in settings under the new option, "Hide Inappropriate Comments." This allows users to choose from words, numbers or emojis that they find offensive and don't want to appear on their profiles. Once moderated comments are turned on, comments that are "inappropriate" will be filtered out. If turned back off, the comments will reappear.
This feature was rumored to be tested on Taylor Swift's profile in July amid an argument with the Kardashians. Users spammed Swift's comment sections on all of her posts with the snake emoji. People began to notice that the snake emojis were inexplicably beginning to disappear, leading some to believe that Instagram had invented a new comment filtering software. Instagram has since confirmed the rumor.
In regards to the complexities of comment filtering, CEO and co-founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, stated, "We know tools aren't the only solution for this complex problem, but together, we can work towards keeping Instagram a safe place for self-expression." He continued with, "My commitment to you is that we will keep building features that safeguard the community and maintain what makes Instagram a positive and creative place for everyone." With this step towards managing cyberbulling, it begs the questions, how or will other social media platforms decide to handle filtering content that some view as offensive?
