• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, July 9, 2019

No longer an oasis of filtered landscapes and flawless selfies, Instagram now attracts as many bullies and bad actors as any other social network.

In response, the Facebook-owned property is cracking down on its more aggressive users.

“We are committed to leading the industry in the fight against online bullying, and we are rethinking the whole experience of Instagram to meet that commitment,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, notes in a new blog post.

Mosseri admitted that Instagram can do more to prevent bullying, as well as to empower those targeted by bullies.

To do so, Instagram has begun rolling out a new feature, powered by AI, that notifies users when their comments have been pegged as potentially offensive to others.

“This intervention gives people a chance to reflect and undo their comment, and prevents the recipient from receiving the harmful comment notification,” according to Mosseri.

In tests, the new feature has had some success in persuading users to undo their comments and even share less hurtful messages, Mosseri said.

In addition, Instagram says, it will soon begin testing Restrict, a feature designed to protect users from unwanted interactions.

“Once you Restrict someone, comments on your posts from that person will only be visible to that person,” according to Mosseri. From there, users can choose to make a restricted person’s comments visible to others by approving their comments.

However, restricted users won’t be able to see when users are active on Instagram, or when they have read their direct messages. 

The feature came in response to Instagram finding that some users were reluctant to block, unfollow or report their bullies out of fear that it might escalate the situation.