Social media has its good side and its dark, depressing, evil side. People and trolls alike leave offensive comments that can ruin your day or start a comment war on a social post. Instagram is no different and it has its fair share of trolls. Its harassment problem isn’t as bad as Twitter and there counter measures in place to block offensive comments on Instagram.
You can block offensive comments on Instagram from the app’s settings. Open the app and tap your profile tab. At the top, tap the cog wheel button to go the app’s settings. Scroll down and tap the Comments section.
Enable Comment Controls
Instagram has an offensive comments filter that you can turn on from the Comments screen. It works for common offensive comments in the English language. If it isn’t doing the trick for you, there are two additional tools that let you block offensive comments on Instagram.
The first is the manual filter. If you expect offensive comments in a language other than English, you can use this filter to blacklist comments based on certain keywords. You have the freedom to enter as many keywords as you like, just separate them by a comma.
Another tool you can use is the default keywords tool. This tool identifies offensive comments based on the comments you report. For it to work, you have to first identify the offensive comments you’re getting for what they are. To mark a comment as offensive, swipe left on it and tap the exclamation sign button. From the menu that appears, select the ‘Abusive comment’ option. Be careful not to select the spam option as that will not add the comment to this particular comment filter.
Instagram’s way of dealing with online abuse involves active learning. The more you identify abusive content, the better it gets at blocking it. A user can simply identify the comments they find offensive and Instagram hides them from the account. Lastly, it also lets users disable comments on a post as well as block users from commenting on your posts altogether.
As for individual accounts that continue to hound you, you can block them from seeing your posts if your account is public or, you can report them. The shortcoming with the report feature is that Instagram isn’t going to instantly suspend an account because of one report. It’s a good thing for when trolls try to use it to get a legit account suspended but it can be counterproductive if you need to report an actual abusive account. That’s why the comment filter is always a good option.