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Fri, Mar

Instagram Reveals New Tools to Reduce Racist, Offensive Comments

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The facebook-owned social media app, Instagram has revealed new measures to reduce abusive and racists content on the social media site. Instagram said it would begin using “stronger warnings”, when users post potentially offensive comments, and also a “hidden words” feature that allows users of the social media platform to filter abusive messages.

 

This was revealed by Instagram's Chief, Adam Mosseri, who stated that the new measures were created to curb the spread of racist and abusive comments.


Mosseri said in a blog post, “Our research shows that a lot of negativity towards public figures comes from people who don’t actually follow them, or who have only recently followed them, and who simply pile on in the moment.


“We saw this after the recent Euro 2020 final, which resulted in a significant and unacceptable spike in racist abuse towards players.”


Some England football players were racially abused on Instagram following their heartbreaking defeat at the Euro 2020 finals, which was played last month due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


These online racist attacks led to more pressure on large social networks like Facebook and Twitter to regulate offensive comments.


The new measures would enable users to continue interactions with long-standing followers but can also limit contact from people who might be abusively targeting users.


Mosseri wrote, “We already show a warning when someone tries to post a potentially offensive comment.


“And if they try to post potentially offensive comments multiple times, we show an even stronger warning...Now, rather than waiting for the second or third comment, we’ll show this stronger message the first time.”

 

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