The social networking application company, Instagram, has started testing a new feature in the application that allows greater protection for users from harassment and abuse, after the "wave of racism" that erupted in the wake of England´s defeat against Italy in the European Nations Cup final. Football, where three black players in the England national team were subjected to harassment and racism, both online and in real life.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said the new feature, called "limits", aims to protect against such practices by allowing users to temporarily stop messages from arriving if they feel they are being targeted by abusive messages.
"There is no place for racism and incitement to hatred on Instagram...People should feel comfortable and feel safe expressing themselves when using Instagram and we are working to ensure all of this," Mosseri was quoted by Cnet.com, a technology specialist.
Mosseri added in a 3-minute video recording that Instagram aims to achieve two goals through the new feature, which is to reduce the amount of harassment on the Instagram platform to the lowest possible degree, and the second is to provide tools that those who are subjected to harassment and abuse can use to protect themselves on the platform.
The "Limits" feature is currently being tested in a number of countries before it is rolled out more widely. Meanwhile, Mosseri said there is a lot of work to be done, both in order to reduce hate speech on the platform or to enable users to protect themselves from Such conversations, he added, “expect more from us in this field in the coming months.”
