Instagram anounces anti-abuse features : all you need to know

 Instagram has announced a set of new features to help protect people from abuse on the app. The company has added the ability to limit comments and DM requests during spikes of increased attention. Instagram will also now issue stronger warnings when people try to post potentially offensive comments. The app has also added a new Hidden Words feature. Read on to know more about the new Instagram features.

Users will now see a 'Limits' feature, which will automatically hide comments and DM requests from people who don't follow you, or who only recently followed you. The feature is available to everyone on Instagram.

To enable it, just go to your privacy settings.

The app already offers a feature called Hidden Words, which allows you to automatically filter offensive words, phrases and emojis into a Hidden folder, that you never have to open if you don't want to. It also filters DM requests that could be spammy or low-quality. However, this feature was only available in a few countries, so Instagram is now planning to release it to everyone globally by the end of this month.

The Facebook-owned company has also 'expanded the list of potentially offensive words, hashtags and emojis that automatically filter out of comments, and will continue updating it frequently.'

Instagram will also now issue a stronger warning when someone tries to post a potentially offensive comment. The company claims that last week, it showed warnings about a million times per day on average to people when they were making potentially offensive comments. 'Of these about 50% of the times the comment was edited or deleted by the user based on these warnings,' Instagram said.