Instagram has been facing scrutiny for a while now for its effect on teenagers. Now a new update to the app expands two of the safety features aimed at protecting teens from bullying. Now, limiting and restricting are changing how they work, providing teens with more options to deal with potential bullies.
Thanks to the new changes, Instagram users now can “limit” their post interactions to “close friends” only. Basically, you will see comments, DMs, tags, and mentions only from people in your “close friends” list. Other followers can still interact with posts, but comments and messages won’t be visible to others.
The new changes (Image Source – Meta)
Comment limiting has been around as a feature since 2021, and it was aimed at preventing a sudden flood of harassment. Now, the new changes are more focused on preventing nasty bullying from occurring on the platform. Especially if the user fears blocking the bully so that the bullying doesn’t escalate.
Also, you get similar changes to the “restrict” feature of the app. Users will be able to prevent restricted people from tagging on mentioning them, and comments from those on the restricted list will be automatically hidden from everyone.
These changes address important things when it comes to the social media platform, and give teens the option to be more in control of who interacts with them there. It’s a great step towards making Instagram more teen-friendly.
