Instagram is officially 10 years old, and is marking the end of its first decade with new features meant to encourage users to be nice to one another.
The company says it’s expanding its in-app warnings that “nudge” users when they try to post a nasty comment. Instead of asking users to rethink their mean comments, the new warnings will note that Instagram may disable users’ accounts if they repeatedly break its rules. As with its prior anti-bullying updates, it won’t prevent users from posting negative comments altogether, but will ask them to rethink it before they post.
And for users who are on the receiving end of offensive comments, Instagram says it’s testing a new feature that will automatically hide comments that are “similar to others that have been reported.”
The app is also bringing back its photo map feature, which Instagram removed from users’ profiles in 2016. The latest version of the feature is slightly different than the original, though. Rather than a publicly-accessible map on users’ profiles, the map is moving to Instagram’s Story Archive. So instead of seeing a map representing the location of your feed posts, you’ll be able to track the locations of all your Stories posts.
The new map will be private, so you won’t be able to use it to show off your travels to your followers, but it should please some longtime users who remember the original.
