Keeping Instagram Safe
Instagram, like many social media platforms, isn't immune to ill-intentioned trolling, hate messages, occasional spam comments or worse: full-scale cyber bullying.
"Since the beginning of Instagram, we have focused on making it a welcoming place for everyone," wrote Kevin Systrom, Instagram's chief executive, in a blog post announcing the updates.
Previously, users were limited to deleting comments only after they were made, but Instagram recently appended this and implemented a comment filtration system that automatically sandblasted comments containing certain keywords that users preferred not to see on their comments section.
Since majority of in-app conversations occur on the comments section of each Instagram post, it's only logical for Instagram to fine-tune its control options further.
Instagram has now introduced a feature that turns off comments altogether, slated to roll out "in a few weeks."

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This week Instagram announced three new tools which give users more control over their profiles. These tools allow users to control comments on their posts, edit follower lists on private accounts and anonymously report when they think their friends need help.

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Organisations including the Food Standards Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions will be able to see UK citizen's entire internet browsing history in weeks.

The Investigatory Powers Bill, which was all but passed into law this week, forces internet providers to keep a full list of Internet Connection Records (ICRs) for a year, and make them available to the government if it asks. Those ICRs effectively serve as a full list of every website that people have visited, not collecting which specific pages are visited or what's done on them but serving as a full list of every site that someone has visited and when.

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One in three internet users between the ages of 12 and 15 say they saw "hate speech" online in the past year, according to Ofcom's latest survey of children's media habits.
It is the first time the UK regulator has posed a question about the topic in its annual study.
The NSPCC charity said the finding was "very worrying", adding such posts should not be tolerated.

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Natasha MacBryde was a beautiful, clever girl hoping to be a vet or paediatrician, who seemed perfectly happy at school until a few months after she turned 15, when she suddenly wanted to dye her hair brown.

Her mother Jane discovered, over the next few weeks, that Tasha (as the family called her) had become the target of nasty messages from fellow pupils on Formspring, a website (which has since closed) where the senders could remain anonymous.

She was further upset at being rejected by a boy she liked. On the evening before Valentine's Day, she looked at Formspring one last time - with its latest, poisonous message - then slipped out of the house and walked to a nearby railway track. She was hit by a train.

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Internet trolls who create derogatory hashtags or doctored images to humiliate others could face prosecution in England and Wales.
Inciting people to harass others online, known as virtual mobbing, could also result in court action, under new Crown Prosecution Service guidance.
The director of public prosecutions said it means the CPS would prosecute just as if offences occurred offline.

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