Instagram to develop ‘School stories’ that only pupils can see – but admits it will have to manually review every post to stop them being taken over by bullies
- Code in the app reveals the firm may be testing a new School stories feature
- Only students would be able to submit and view content posted on the Stories
- Instagram would manually review posts so they don’t become a target for bullies
Instagram could launch a version of its popular Stories format for students.
Code hidden in the app shows that Instagram appears to be testing a feature called ‘School Stories,’ according to TechCrunch.
Only students at a particular school would be able to submit and view content posted to the Story.
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Instagram could launch a version of its popular Stories format for students. Code hidden in the app shows that Instagram appears to be testing a feature called ‘School Stories’
Instagram would also add in extra protections to make sure School Stories don’t become a magnet for cyberbullies.
A line in the code states: ‘School stories are manually reviewed to make sure the community is safe.’
Details of the feature were discovered by Jane Manchun Wong a frequent tipster and a computer science student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
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Instagram didn’t confirm whether it’s planning to launch such a feature, TechCrunch said.
It wouldn’t be the first time Instagram introduced a feature catered to students.
Last month, Instagram rolled out new tools for user profiles that let them state their school, class year and favorite activities.
Details of the feature were discovered by Jane Manchun Wong a frequent tipster and a computer science student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Instagram would also add in extra protections to prevent abuse by cyberbullies. A line in the code states: ‘School stories are manually reviewed to make sure the community is safe’
That’s on top of another feature it’s testing that lets students join groups specific to US universities and colleges.
When users opt in to connect with fellow students, it adds their university and graduating year to their profile.
It also gives them access to a list of other users who have added the same information to their profile.
Given Instagram’s issues with bullying, it’s likely a good idea for the firm to maintain a tight grip over what kinds of content can be submitted to School stories.
The firm has recently ramped up its tools to prevent bullying.
Instagram is taking action against trolls and bullies. Last month, Instagram launched new machine learning tools that are able to ‘proactively detect’ bullying in photos and captions
Last month, Instagram launched new machine learning tools that are able to ‘proactively detect’ bullying in photos and captions.
Instagram already uses AI to filter out comments that violate its Community Guidelines, but this feature takes it a step further.
The algorithm ranks and rates images and captions to detect bullying in photos.
For example, it can detect if a photo is criticizing a person’s appearance or character, as well as if the photo is making a threat to someone’s wellbeing.
Once a photo is flagged, it’s sent to Instagram’s human moderators for further review.
HOW DO YOU FILTER OUT COMMENTS ON INSTAGRAM?
Instagram has two different filters that users can apply to block offensive or spammy comments.
1) Blocking offensive comments
A filter will block certain offensive comments on posts and in live video.
And if the filter somehow misses an offensive comment, users can still report, delete or turn off comments.
The filter is optional, and can be accessed in the ‘Comments’ tab within the settings menu.
It will initially be launched in English, but will be rolled out in more languages over time.
2) Spam filter
A spam filter has also been added in nine languages, that will look for obvious spam in comments and live videos.
The filter will remove spam written in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
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