A week after Facebook introduced new tools to limit bullying and harassment incidents on its platform, Instagram today announced the same move. The Facebook-owned photo and video-sharing service has begun rolling out new tools that use machine learning to identify instances of bullying in photos, including captions, shared on its platform.
As part of the new measure, the photos in question will be sent to Instagram"s team of reviewers who will then remove the content found to be in violation of its anti-bullying policy. Instagram stressed that the new tools will help the company in ensuring the safety of teen users whom it believes experience online bullying most of the time.
Adam Mosseri, who was appointed as head of Instagram last week after the resignation of Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom as co-founders, said in a blog post:
While the majority of photos shared on Instagram are positive and bring people joy, occasionally a photo is shared that is unkind or unwelcome.
Beyond photos, Instagram has also added a bullying comment filter to live videos as part of efforts to keep a fun platform for all users. The feature was actually launched in May to remove bullying comments from Feed, Explore, and Profile.
While Instagram sees the act of curbing bullying incidents an important step, it also wants to take things further by introducing a new camera effect to spread kindness on the platform. To start using the new effect, open the Instagram camera and tap the face icon at the bottom. Over the long term, Mosseri vows to continue working to protect Instagram users from hostile behavior.