Instagram now lets teens limit interaction with ‘close friends’ to avoid online harassment

Meta's social media platform, Instagram is strengthening its features to protect teens from harassment. Instagram is one such platform which stays in the limelight when it comes to safety protection for teens.

However, the company has introduced several strict safety and security features over the years for parents and teens to protect them from any unethical use or activity. Now, Instagram highlights that it has introduced a new feature to "Limits" allowing users to restrict their interaction with their set close friends.

Instagram Limit tools for teenagers

According to a Tech Crunch report, Instagram will be including additional safety features to "Limit" tools which are specifically designed for teenagers to combat harassment. This feature will completely restrict user interaction with unwanted or unknown people and allow teens to interact with their close friends. When the feature is enabled users will only see comments, messages, story replies, tags, and mentions from friends added to the list, while for other users it will be strictly muted.

While the limit feature is available for all users, the restricted interactions will only be available for teenage users on Instagram. The feature will be enabled by default in the 'Close Friend" settings which will allow users to restrict bullying and harassment. If this restriction does not suit user preferences, then they can also select limit interaction with " recent followers." Furthermore, if a user feels uncomfortable with any particular account, they can restrict interaction with it instead of blocking it altogether. This will simply hide comments, mentions and tags.

Meta's take on teen safety and mental health issues

Meta Platforms have been accused of not taking the mental health issues of teenage users seriously. Several parents of teen children have reported issues of bullying and harassment on the platform. Therefore, to protect its teenage user base, Meta has introduced several safety measures and features. Recently, in January, the company introduced a feature which restricts users above 18 years of age from messaging teenagers along with strict parental controls. Now interaction limit feature will become more useful for young Instagram users to avoid harassment or bullying.