In an effort to create a streamlined and safest environment on Instagram, the social media giant owned by Facebook is taking measures to create the community of more than one billion users, safe. Instagram has rolled out a number of tools to scrutinize the authenticity of an account and to provide added privacy to the users as per its press release yesterday.
The first feature is called ‘About This Account’ which caters towards accounts with a higher number of followers where you can check several details about the said account. Simply tap on the Profile and tap on three vertical dots for settings and select ‘About This Account’. The feature is curated to provided information such as when was the account created and in which country, the total number of followers similar to the said accounts as well as how menu usernames have been changed in last year.
The feature can greatly influence the Instagram users to follow only genuine accounts and not spambots. There are reporting tools available so that users can report spam accounts and get it removed from Instagram. The feature is limited to those accounts with higher followers and will be rolled out globally in a few days.
Access to Verification is another feature that provides users with a good amount of followers to apply for verification of their account and to get the ‘blue badge’ that you have seen on celebrities and other known personalities. According to this feature, Instagram will require users to feed in their account username, the full name, and a copy of government-issued photo ID that can be used to verify the accounts. Note that Instagram scrutinize each and every account that comes for verification and it doesn’t guarantee that your account will be verified if you submit all the documents properly. Here’s how you can get verified on Instagram.
The third feature is Instagram has integrated with third-party Authenticator apps that provides a second layer of protection for users to prevent any deliberate or accident attempt to turn on the app and endanger user’s privacy. Instagram has teamed up with an Authentication App that provides a code that users need to enter when logging on Instagram. If you already have an authentication app, Instagram will detect it but if there’s no authentication app, the users will be redirected to Google Play Store and App Store to download and access Instagram without any worry.
Apart from these security features, Instagram is working on a number of beta features such as a virtual college community feature that scrutinizes and segregate users according to the course taken, college and year selected. Instagram is experimenting with varied features. It recently changes the outlook of Explore page where users to consume content of different niche and much more.
