By This year’s Safer Internet Day theme is “Together for a better internet.” We couldn’t agree more, and want to take part in it by ensuring you understand all the tools available to stay safe, and how to find each other on Instagram. For more information about each feature, check out Instagram’s Help Center.
What to do if you see something that shouldn’t be on Instagram
If you see something that should not be on Instagram, you can report it to Instagram. Their team works all day long to immediately review and remove content that goes against their Community Guidelines. To report something, tap “…” on the top right of the profile or post, or swipe left on the comment. To report Stories, Live and IGTV, tap the “…” at the bottom of the screen.
You can also your received direct messages. Just press and hold the DM and tap “Report.” Reporting on Instagram is always anonymous, so they won’t find out that the report came from you. And it only takes one report to have a video, photo, comment or message reviewed. If the content is reported to Instagram and violates their Community Guidelines, they will remove it.
What to do if someone is bullying or harassing you?
Harassment and Bullying are not allowed on Instagram, and they have features to help protect you from negative experiences. You can block users that you don’t want to interact with, this way they won’t be able to see your profile or like or comment on your posts. When you block an account, they won’t be notified, and you can choose to unblock them at any time you want.
You can also manage comments on your posts. You can stop users from commenting on your posts altogether. Instagram also has filters that automatically hide comments with offensive phrases and words from your posts. These filters are on by default for Instagram’s global community and can be disabled in the Comment Controls center in the platform. You can also prop these filters by using their manual filter, which lets you add your custom list of emojis or words that you think they are offensive. You can also customize who can comment on your posts or even block comments from particular users.
Go to your settings and choose “Comment Controls” to access the above features.
How to protect your privacy on Instagram?
You are in control of what you post on Instagram. You can decide to make your account private, which means you approve the users who follow you and can remove people at any time.
Finally, when you only want to share your Stories with a few specific group of people, you have the option to make a close friends list on Stories and share with just the users you’ve added. To create a list, go to your profile and tap on “Close Friends” in the side menu.
