Changes
400 times Instagram's guidance has changed, newest first.
8 of 400 changes about Bullying and harassment. Show all
2026
Bullying and harassmentSep 2026
The School Partnership Program grew from a pilot open to US middle and high schools to nearly 17,000 partner schools.
Before
Partnering Directly With Schools and Teachers to Address Bullying“We recently introduced Instagram Teen Accounts, a new experience for teens, guided by parents. Teen Accounts were designed to give parents peace of mind that their teens are having safe, age-appropriate experiences on Instagram, with built-in protections turned on automatically.”
After
Expanding Instagram’s School Partnership Program to Help Teens Stay Informed“At Meta, we want the same thing as parents and educators: to ensure teens have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and that the time teens spend on our apps is meaningful. That’s why we introduced Teen Accounts for Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and Threads, and why we recently announced an agreement with 52 bipartisan state Attorneys General across the US that will further support teens and parents with new restrictions.”
2025
Bullying and harassmentJul 2025
Some Teen Account protections, the strictest message settings and Hidden Words, now also apply to adult-run accounts that mainly feature children.
Before
Introducing Instagram Teen Accounts: Built-In Protections for Teens, Peace of Mind for Parents“We developed Teen Accounts with parents and teens in mind. The new Teen Account protections are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent.”
After
Expanding Teen Account Protections and Child Safety Features“We’re also strengthening our protections for accounts run by adults that primarily feature children. These include adults who regularly share photos and videos of their children, and adults – such as parents or talent managers – who run accounts that represent teens or children under 13.”
2024
Bullying and harassmentSep 2024
The 'more private defaults for under-16s' became Teen Accounts: private by default for all under-16s and for under-18s who sign up, with the strictest message settings, and parents decide whether under-16s can loosen them.
Before
There's an important discussion happening right now about keeping young people safe online.“Over the last few years, we've led the fight against online bullying with new interesting features like restrict, which gives power back to the targets of bullying, hidden words, which help you control your experience in DMs and in comments.”
After
Introducing Instagram Teen Accounts: Built-In Protections for Teens, Peace of Mind for Parents“We developed Teen Accounts with parents and teens in mind. The new Teen Account protections are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent.”
Bullying and harassmentFeb 2024
Hidden Words went from a filter you had to switch on to being on by default for creators.
Before
Today, we’re announcing new tools to help protect our community from abuse.“Today, we’re announcing new tools to help protect our community from abuse. Limits - now available globally - lets you hide comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you or who only just followed you.”
After
Improving DMs for Creators“You're creator and you use DMs we have an update this week that will hopefully make the experience just a little bit more positive for you. Now you probably already know how to use filters. And what we're adding is a filter for people you follow because maybe you DM a lot of people you don't follow yet negotiating deals, figuring out collaborations.”
2022
Bullying and harassmentAug 2022
Bullying and harassment content actioned on Instagram moved from 5.5 million pieces in Q1 2021 to 7 million in Q1 2022 and 6.1 million in Q2 2022.
Before
Community Standards Enforcement Report, First Quarter 2021“In addition to new metrics and ongoing improvements in prevalence, we saw steady numbers on the content we took action on across many problem areas. On Facebook in Q1 we took action on: - 8. 8 million pieces of bullying and harassment content, up from 6.”
After
Community Standards Enforcement Report, Second Quarter 2022“We continue to make steady progress on a number of areas, including bullying and harassment. As we continue to improve our AI technology, the proactive detection rate of bullying and harassment content on Facebook increased from 67% in Q1 2022 to 76.”
Bullying and harassmentJul 2022
The bullying and harassment policy expanded from protecting involuntary public figures to also covering gender-based harassment for everyone, including public figures, and banning certain mass harassment or brigading.
Before
An Update on Our Equity Work“We’ve developed and updated a number of our company policies to support communities worldwide. We updated our policies to more specifically account for certain kinds of implicit hate speech, such as content depicting blackface, or stereotypes about Jewish people.”
After
A Closer Look: Meta’s First Annual Human Rights Report“This report provides more details about our entire approach to managing human rights risks. While some areas of the report have been previously disclosed, many are new, such as the due diligence we performed in regard to COVID-19 and Ray-Ban Stories.”
2021
Bullying and harassmentAug 2021
Instagram now shows the stronger warning about a potentially offensive comment on the first try, instead of a gentle edit prompt first.
Before
#SaferInternetDay“Young people face a disproportionate amount of online bullying but are reluctant to report or block peers who bully them, so last year we created a new feature called Restrict. Once you Restrict an account, you won’t receive any notifications from them.”
After
Today, we’re announcing new tools to help protect our community from abuse.“Today, we’re announcing new tools to help protect our community from abuse. Limits - now available globally - lets you hide comments and DMs from people who don’t follow you or who only just followed you.”
Bullying and harassmentApr 2021
The DM abuse controls Instagram said it was still building were launched: abusive DMs are filtered before you see them, and people you've blocked can't contact you from a new account.
Before
An update on our work to tackle abuse on Instagram“We want Instagram to be a place for people to connect with the people and things they love. But we also know that, just like in the offline world, there will always be those who abuse others.”
After
Introducing new tools to protect our community from abuse“We recently shared an update on our work to combat abuse and hate speech on Instagram, which included stricter penalties for people who send abusive Direct Messages (DMs). Now, we’re announcing a new way to protect people from seeing abusive DMs in the first place, as well as the ability to prevent someone you’ve blocked from contacting you from a new account.”