Instagram is now making it easier to keep trolls out of your comments.
Image: Getty
A new feature that which was announced in June lets users filter out potentially offensive comments from their posts. Users can also filter out their own list of words or phrases.
Speaking to Mashable, Instagram wouldn’t comment specifically on what words or phrases are filtered out when the comment filter is enabled, in part because it doesn’t want trolls to be able to work around the algorithm.
Enabling the feature is easy. Simply go to the Settings inside Instagram. Then scroll down to the section labelled Comments.
Once inside that section, you can enable the Hide Inappropriate Comments section. You can also include a list of comment-separated words or phrases that you want hidden from view.
These words and phrases also include hashtags and you can include emoji as blocked characters too. (Now we definitively know how Taylor Swift can get rid of all of those snake emoji remarks.) When someone leaves a comment on your photo with one of the blocked words or phrases, he or she will still see the comment on their end. But to everyone else, it’s hidden from view.
My friend tested this feature with me, and although she sees her hideous comment, the final image shows something different.
This is what my friends sees. No one else will ever see the words “Meghan Trainor” on this post.