Instagram’s New Comment Moderation Tool
by Amber Mac on September 16, 2016
We love Instagram but, like many social media networks, it at times struggles with harassment, trolls, and other types of negative behaiour. To help combat some of the abuse that takes place in comment threads, Instagram has recently rolled out its new keyword comment moderation tool. This hides any comments (past and future) on all posts you see that contain a default list of “words or phrases often reported as offensive” or, instead, a list of keywords that you specify yourself.
It’s super easy to use:
- Open the app and go to your Profile page;
- Tap on the gear icon in the upper right;
- Scroll down to the Comments selection and click it;
- Turn on “Hide Inappropriate Comments”; and (optionally)
- If you want to provide your own list of words and phrases to be blocked then go to the Custom Keywords area and add them in a comma-separated list
Again, using the Custom Keywords list means this list will replace, not add on to, Instagram’s default list (which, by the way, is only in English right now). Finally, please keep in mind that “Hide Inappropriate Comments” only hides the comments from YOUR view, so others may still be able to see them.
BONUS: If you want to completely delete a comment then you can do that on your own posts (and only your own posts) by tapping the speech bubble below the photo, swiping left over (iOS) or tapping on (Android) the comment, and then clicking on the trashcan icon. If you want to report a comment for abuse or spam then click the stop-sign-with-exlamation-mark icon instead (this is anonymous and the person who posted doesn’t get notified of your report).
