Instagram is trialling a feature that will stop explicit images appearing in direct message requests, after research showed trolls using unsolicited DMs to bombard high-profile women with abusive content.The trial will limit people to sending one DM request to someone who does not follow them and that request will be limited to text-only. Users will be able to send images or videos via DM only after the subject of their request has accepted it.“In practice, this means people will no longer be able to receive unsolicited images or videos from people they don’t follow,” said Meta, Instagram’s owner, in a statement.The move follows research that showed the TV presenter Rachel Riley, the women’s safety campaigner Jamie Klingler and the magazine editor Sharan Dhaliwal were subjected to misogynistic, hateful and graphically violent messages in DM requests.The report published last year by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate found that of 8,720 requests sent to the trio, more than 6% had content that violated Instagram’s content guidelines. Most of those violating messages were either image or video-based, CCDH said, with one example including more than two dozen explicit videos sent to Riley by the same man.Last year it was reported that Instagram
Read More
Instagram tests feature to block explicit images in direct message requests – The Guardian
