Instagram is now cracking down on accounts in direct messages. The company confirmed that it is now permanently banning accounts that use Instagram DMs to abuse, Harris or threaten other users.
Previously, Instagram would only temporarily limit ability to send DMs if the account was reported for harassment. Now the company wants to go a step ahead.
“Today, we’re announcing that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs. Currently, when someone sends DMs that break our rules, we prohibit that person from sending any more messages for a set period of time. Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account,” says Instagram.
The company also says that it will see if there’s a new account created to get around the messaging restrictions and will disable the new account as well.
Instagram says that detecting abuse in comments is easy but not in DMs because it doesn’t scan DMs. So, it cannot see if a person is using DMs for harassment. But the company improved its rules against hate speed and detection tools to fix this. This update came after the recent racist abuse footballers in the UK faced on Instagram DMs.
