Social media giant Instagram recently reported that it has rolled out a major update on its platform. Two of these updates are focused towards user posts, and account takedowns, along with a number of minor tweaks.
Instagram announced on Thursday that the newly established update will now notify users if their account is in danger of being taken down because of possible guideline violations. The company said that a notification system was added into its platform, and this will give users the ability to appeal their plea directly through Instagram. These pleas cover a lot of ground, including content that was removed by the company. This new notification system is a great alternative to the current Help Center, which is quite complicated and tedious to manipulate.
In a statement, Instagram said, "To start, appeals will be available for content deleted for violations of our nudity and pornography, bullying and harassment, hate speech, drug sales, and counter-terrorism policies, but we'll be expanding appeals in the coming months."
Instagram added that if a particular content or post was removed inappropriately, the company will restore it and lift the violation count from the poster's record.
Regarding a user's record, Instagram said that it is expanding the parameters and coverage upon which user posts are to be filtered. In the past, Instagram had flag accounts that violated some of its rules to a certain extent. With this new update, Instagram will completely take down an account after they have exceeded a certain number of violations within a given timeframe.
In some countries, Instagram has started rolling out a feature that will allow users to hide the number of likes and video views of a user's post. The company confirmed this earlier this week. As of this writing, Instagram has rolled out this feature in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Canada, and Ireland.
Instagram said that it wants its billions of users to actually focus on the photo or video that are being posted into its website, and not towards the numbers of views or like. Users will still have the option to see or share the number of likes, shares, and views of their posts.
Many social media critics have lauded Instagram for these changes. Recent scientific studies have proven that the number of likes and views of a particular post have a direct psychological effect on the user. Sometimes it leads to anxiety and other psychological issues.
