Instagram is tightening its grip on online harassment and revenge porn on its website, changing the language in its guidelines to be far firmer and more understandable.
The changes are the biggest that the company has made since Facebook acquired it back in 2012, with many critics saying that the guidelines were previously too relaxed.
"In the old guidelines, we would say 'don't be mean,'" said Instagram director of public policy Nicky Jackson Colaco. "Now we're actively saying you can't harass people. The language is just stronger."
According to Colaco, there is no one incident that prompted the company to change its guidelines, however, Instagram has reportedly been working on the changes for over a year. Throughout that time, it has listened to user complaints and confusion over the policies and what they mean.
The changes are very similar to what Facebook, the owner of Instagram, went through a few weeks ago. In fact, many of the guidelines on Instagram are similar or the same to those now in effect on Facebook.
Instagram's guidelines used to be far more politics, with the new version being far longer and using more specific language. For example, the guidelines used to ask that users do not post images including "nudity or mature content." Now, the guidelines specify that images of post-mastectomy scarring and breastfeeding are okay.
The guidelines also specify that any form of support of terrorism or hate groups is not allowed.
"We remove content that contains credible threats or hate speech, content that targets private individuals to degrade or shame them, personal information meant to blackmail or harass someone, and repeated unwanted messages. We do generally allow stronger conversation around people who are featured in the news or have a large public audience due to their profession or chosen activities," say the guidelines.
The changes in the guidelines reflect how Instagram is growing up, much like Facebook. Previously, the guidelines really all boiled down to a list of dos and don'ts, which often led to confusion. Of course, that growing up is reflected in the number of users on the website. Before Facebook acquired the social media site, it only had around 30 million users, and now, that number is sitting at around 300 million.
While Instagram does not screen photos before they are posted to the website, it does receive hundreds of thousands of complaints each week. Ideally, the new guidelines will help cut down on the number of complaints that the website is receiving.
