Back in July, Instagram announced its new anti-bullying tool dubbed Restrict. Restrict marks the company’s continued efforts to curb bullying on its platform, which is a significant issue to most – if not all – social media platforms. The new tool will enable users to protect themselves from unwanted interactions from individual accounts without necessarily blocking them.
Unlike direct blocking, Restrict shadow bans a user. So, the abusive user will still see your Instagram posts, even interact with them, but it won’t appear from your end. Their comments will be strictly visible to them. But you have an option to show the comment publicly by choosing to “Show Comment” alternatively just ignore or delete.
The company said the new tool proves helpful to some users who fear to block or report bullies directly – especially young people. Furthermore, the new tool provides a smooth way of avoiding bullies without having fears of retribution.
When restrict is enabled for an individual user account, they will also not be able to see when you’re active. Plus, their messages won’t be marked as read when they shoot you a DM.
To use the new tool, you can swipe left on a user comment, or head over to Instagram’s Settings page under Privacy. Alternatively, you can enable it by going directly to their Instagram page.
Apart from “Restrict,” Instagram also started testing its new AI-powered Rethink tool in recent months. AI rethink tool warns users of posting offensive comments on a post. “Are you sure you want to post this?” will be the byline for that. This tool does not restrict users from posting the comments, however. So, Restrict proves to be the most effective way.
