Instagram rolls out a new feature, Restrict, that will help users shadowban people they don’t feel comfortable around and don’t wish to block them outright either.
In places like schools, bullying is a prevalent practice and blocking a bully online might invoke harmful behaviour on the campus, which leads to even more bullying. Keeping this in mind, Instagram’s shadowbanning feature is intended to “quietly protect” user account without aggravating the situation.
How to restrict someone on Instagram?
To restrict a user, you can swipe left on their comment, or restrict them via the Privacy tab in Settings, or via the profile of the user you wish to restrict.
Once you’ve restricted a user, their comments on your posts will only be visible to them. Users can view the comment by tapping on See Comment and can also approve or delete the comment.
When a person you’ve restricted comments on your posts, Instagram won’t send you a notification. This includes direct messages from restricted users, which will be moved to the Message Request section. You will be able to see their messages, but that person won’t be notified of your Instagram activity, including when you read their message or when you are active.
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“Bullying is a complex issue, and we know that young people face a disproportionate amount of online bullying but are reluctant to report or block peers who bully them. Restrict is designed to empower you to quietly protect your account while still keeping an eye on a bully,” Instagram announced.
However, if we know anything about school, it’s that the people who are being shadowbanned will start understanding when that’s happening to them, and in case of bullying, that might not go down well. But in any case, this seems like a welcome step by the social network as this aids its evergrowing young userbase as well as the existing ones.
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