Instagram has just announced three new features that give you more control over comments, tags, and mentions. The update is meant to fight online bullying by letting you batch delete comments, pin positive comments, and disable tags and mentions.
As with previous updates like these, Instagram says that these new features “mark the continuation of our effort to lead the industry in the fight against online bullying.”
Today, they’re doing this in three ways: by letting you delete comments and block problematic users in bulk, by letting you pin positive comments, and by giving you some control over who can tag and mention you on the platform.
New comment controls now let you delete up to 25 comments at once, as well as block or restrict multiple accounts at once. Instagram says that this feature has been well received in their tests so far, and is especially useful for users with large followings.
Additionally, you can now pin positive comments by simply swiping left and selecting the new pin icon. This will hopefully help elevate positive conversation, and keep anything negative from being the “top comment” on a post, helping users “set the tone” for their account, says Instagram.
Finally, the last update allows you some broad-strokes control over who can tag and mention you on the photo sharing platform. Each of the two features can be set to “Everyone,” “Only People You Follow,” or “No One” depending on how private you want to remain.
The controls apply to comments, photo captions, and Stories alike, so if you select “No One” you’ll be covered across the board. You can see how this works in the screenshots below:
Each of these features seems to be on a slightly different timeline. In the announcement, Instagram says they are “launching” comment controls, “testing” pinned comments, and “rolling out” control over tags and mentions, so you might not see all of these features just yet.
To learn more about any of yesterday’s updates, head over to the Instagram blog or update to the latest version of the app to try the features you’ve already got access to.