Before making the switch to “stories,” Instagram made a major update over the weekend when it announced that users could ban commenting certain words or phrases on their posts, or disable commenting altogether. The change, which was intended to alleviate online harassment, first became available to “high volume comment” accounts, like celebrities and other profiles with huge followings—and some celebrities have already started putting it to use.
Kylie Jenner, for example, completely disabled all comments on her posts yesterday. The social media star—who boasts nearly 70 million followers and a young, digitally-active fanbase—has complained in the past about users writing “lb” (“like back,” a request for other users to like one of your photos) and self-promoting in her comments.
STOP WRITING LB ON ALL MY INSTAGRAM PHOTOS AND USING ME AS A WAY TO ADVERTISE YOURSELF.
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) November 30, 2012
So I'm trying out disabling my comments on Instagram because I'm done w people self promoting & the "LB"s 😊
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) August 2, 2016
Her frustration is understandable, considering her comments usually look like this:
Chrissy Teigen, on the other hand, took advantage of the word-blocking feature first before disabling her comments altogether too. She documented the process on Twitter, as she posted a picture of her entering words like “slut” and “whore” to be excluded from her comments.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/760478401119465473
But now, as followers have noticed, Teigen took a note from Kylie’s book and just turned off all comments from her photos. The move makes sense for the model, who hasstruggled with cyberbullying and negative, body-shaming messages on social media. Perhaps cutting them off completely was easier than writing down a long list of hurtful words.
https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/760476263383388161
