Instagram is making it easier to hide comments

Instagram is readying a new feature that will let users combat harassment or inappropriate content in their comment feeds.

According to The Washington Post, Instagram will soon roll out a feature that lets all users filter put words or phrases they find offensive in comment streams. Users can also opt to not allow comments on posts at all.

In a statement to The Post, Instagram’s public policy head, Nicky Jackson Colaco, had this to say:

Our goal is to make Instagram a friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe place for self expression. We have slowly begun to offer accounts with high volume comment threads the option to moderate their comment experience. As we learn, we look forward to improving the comment experience for our broader community.

Instagram wouldn’t say if this was the feature that was used to wipe all those snake emoji off of Taylor Swift’s Instagram a few weeks ago, but it would make sense if it was. TechCrunch originally reported on a content moderation feature that was making its way to business accounts.

It sounds like Instagram will be rolling out the comment filtering to high-profile (read: celebrity) accounts first and then it will roll out to other accounts in the coming months.

The ability to disable comments on posts will be rolling out to all users soon.

Instagram’s approach to helping users deal with harassers is noticeably different than how other social networks – namely Twitter – deal with the problem.

On Twitter, users can make accounts private and block and report users, but there isn’t a way for all users to filter offensive content from showing up on their feeds. Verified users can turn on a “quality filter” section in Twitter’s app that will try to limit offensive or abusive language, but as celebrities such as Leslie Jones have seen, that only works so well.

Now if only Instagram could create a spam filter too.