Instagram Helps You Beat Bullies Using “Restrict”

Instagram has launched a new tool called Restrict designed to help you beat bullies. As the name suggests, Restrict allows you to restrict the way certain people can interact and engage with you. However, the people being restricted won’t have a clue.

In July 2019, Instagram launched new tools to combat bullying. These tools are necessary due to the amount of bullying which occurs on Instagram. A small group of users has been testing Restrict since then, and Instagram is now rolling it out to everyone.

How to Use Instagram’s Restrict Feature

Instagram explains how Restrict works in a post on the Instagram Blog. After admitting bullying is a problem on its platform the company claims that “Restrict is designed to empower you to quietly protect your account while still keeping an eye on a bully.”

To Restrict someone who is bothering you, either head to Settings > Privacy, click on the profile of the person you want to Restrict, or swipe-left on a comment they have left. Then enable Restrict on that account to lessen the impact they can have on you.

Starting today you can protect your account from unwanted interactions with a new feature called Restrict. This is just one of the ways we’re empowering our community to stand up to bullying. https://t.co/65WJuAOdON pic.twitter.com/WOaNnsJC1y

— Instagram (@instagram) October 2, 2019

Enabling Restrict on someone’s account means the comments that person leaves on your posts are only visible to them. However, you can choose to view individual comments and then approve each one, delete them, or ignore them.

You also won’t receive notifications for comments left by restricted accounts, or notifications for direct messages. Those DMs will be filtered to Message Request, where you can view the messages without the sender knowing that you’ve read them.

Other Ways of Dealing With Bullies

Instagram deserves credit here for seeking to fix a problem on its platform. And bullying is a problem on all social networks where people you know in real life can find and follow you. Hopefully, Restrict will help stamp out bullying of this nature.

There are various ways of dealing with bullies. Here’s how celebrities deal with mean tweets, which is to fight back against the trolls. Unfortunately, not all of us have the wherewithal to react in that way, which is why the platforms themselves need to act.

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