Instagram is taking another jab at offensive vocabulary shared on their platform. The company today is introducing an AI-powered offensive comment filter that will block any hate commentary or explicit language from reaching your feed. Before, they used a similar filter, but one that would only filter out words Instagram specifically programmed as offensive. Now, the company can identify different contexts words are spoken in and determine whether they come out as offensive or not. It’s also turned on by default so you don’t have to worry about trying to figure out how to turn it on.
Many of you have told us that toxic comments discourage you from enjoying Instagram and expressing yourself freely. To help, we’ve developed a filter that will block certain offensive comments on posts and in live video. All other comments will appear as they normally do and you can still report comments, delete comments or turn them off. Also, you can always turn this filter off. To access it, click the “…” settings menu from the profile and scroll to tap “Comments.”
Notably, those who write offensive comments won’t notice their words are being blocked from the entire world. So basically, jerks will remain jerks on Instagram and no one will notice.
The new AI-powered filter is available first in English, with additional language support arriving “over time.”
In addition, a new spam filter is getting a formal introduction today which is available in nine different languages. This filter will get rid of potential spam comments found on posts so no one has to deal with them. Mind you, Instagram isn’t doing anything about spam accounts following you every day, but this is still a nice step towards a cleaner future for the platform.
Powered by machine learning, today’s filters are our latest tools to keep Instagram a safe place. Our team has been training our systems for some time to recognize certain types of offensive and spammy comments so you never have to see them. The tools will improve over time, enabling the community’s experience of sharing to improve as well. We hope to make these filters available in more languages as our algorithms improve.
Both of these new filters are rolling out now.
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