There has been a massive ruckus in the social media platform as Instagram declared a significant shift in its commenting option in order to minimize the negative comments and harassment. The platform through which people share their photos that has more than 2 billion active monthly users will reduce the number of comments which can be placed on a particular post to five per day.

This is due to increasing user complaints regarding the detrimental effects of open commenting on users’ psychological state and the general experience on the application.

This restriction of comment section on Instagram has received different responses from users of the social platform. Most of the users and mental health activists have welcomed the decision, given that the comments section on most popular posts is usually daunting and at times abusive.

They say that this change will bring out a positive culture that enhances the user’s interaction with content and other users. However, the critics have stated that this is a limitation to free speech and could hamper the interactions and discussions in the platform.

In the next few months, the new policy will be implemented gradually to enable the users to adapt to the changes. This move by Instagram seems to have been well explained where the company explained that the restriction of five comments would be implemented to all users, irrespective of their number of followers or verification. But, it has indicated that in future it may allow a system where people with good records can post in other ways apart from commenting.

In addition to this, Instagram is also going to release new artificial intelligence moderation tools that will be able to detect and subsequently delete a potentially abusive or harassing comment before it will even be posted. This proactive approach is used in an effort to try to prevent the harassment and bullying of users and allow them to be able to freely express themselves.

This decision is not only going to affect the user experience on Facebook but also on all the other websites. It appears that content creators and influencers who use engagement metrics to negotiate their partnerships and sponsorships will have to change their approach. Due to limited comments allowed, it may change the focus on the quality rather than the quantity of the user engagements.

This could potentially result to more constructive and informative comment sections instead of the current rampant and inconsequential comments that most popular posts attract.

Meta, the company that owns Instagram has endorsed this effort saying that it is in line with its efforts to improve the quality of life online and support communities that are healthy online. It has also suggested that it may try to roll out the same changes to other of its platforms, such as Facebook, should the test run on Instagram yield positive results.

Looking at the current state of social media one can conclude that platforms are being put in a position where they have to deal with the side effects of their inventions. It is a bold move that Instagram has taken to cut down comments section that shows how social media companies are managing user interactions and contents.

As for how useful this measure will be in tackling online hate speech, only time will tell, however, this appears to be the first step toward acknowledging the need for more moderated and thus less chaotic online interaction.

While the users, content creators, and businesses adapt to this new reality on Instagram, the few subsequent months will be decisive if this comment limitation strategy becomes the norm across all social media platforms or if other solutions will be found for the problem of harassment and toxicity in social networks.