Secure your Instagram account: expert tips for more security

Expert tips for your security on Instagram from Thilda, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Instagram Germany – How do I protect my account from SPAM and bots?

The nice thing about social media: You can network with people all over the world, deal with topics of all kinds, exchange interests and learn a lot of new things. And you can decide whether you want to do it privately by staying private with your account – or you can decide to make your account public and thus give other people the chance to be inspired by you.

It is very important to me personally to point out a few things if you (especially) have a public account. Because public means that every other person / brand can see your content and react to your content.

You should therefore keep asking yourself the following questions:

– Why do I have this account? What do I hope for from this account?

– What makes you happy and fun?

– What do I hate to reveal about myself on the internet?

– What do I do if I am harassed and / or want to protect my account?

Unfortunately, I cannot help you with the first four questions, as this is entirely up to you. Sometimes it also helps to create a mood board yourself to come up with the answers. But what I can help you with is the last question. Because you are the only person who should be on the lever when it comes to your account.

If you are harassed by other accounts, you have several options:

To block
By blocking someone, you are banning them from your account.
This person will no longer be able to access your account and will no longer be able to contact you.
NEW: From now on you can also set whether all other / new accounts of a blocked person should be blocked at the same time.

Restrict
By restricting a person, you are still allowing the person to see your account, but you are restricting the person’s actions. That means: The person can z. B. Like and comment on something. The comment remains invisible as long as you approve it.

Filter comments
Sometimes it’s words, emojis or your own mobile phone number that we don’t want to read in comments or during an Instagram live. By storing individual words in a word filter list under “Settings”, “Privacy” and “Hide messages / comments”, you ensure that precisely these words, emojis or characters no longer appear in your comments or in a live.

You can also determine who can leave comments on your account.

Limitieren
If you’re being harassed, you can limit unwanted comments and direct messages for a certain amount of time. For example, you can restrict accounts that have not subscribed to you and / or new subscribers who have recently followed you (since last week). Their comments are hidden similar to the word filter list and only you can approve them.

Hide messages
You can also restrict direct messages under “Settings”, “Privacy”, “Hide messages / comments” and bring them to nirvana. You can decide whether message requests should always be hidden or only those that contain things from your word filter list. These then end up in a third folder and you do not get a message preview so that you are not confronted with it in the first place. You can also report this whole separate folder without reading through the messages.

You notice that you can adjust a lot. And it’s up to you what you set how. That means: Regardless of whether it is offensive things, things that you simply do not want to read, private information that you want to protect or spam that you do not want to see – you determine what happens and can be seen on your account.

Report harassment

And with all of this, I ask you to report things as well. Because that’s the only way Instagram can get better. Important tip: When reporting, select exactly why you are reporting something in the menu. This is the only way we can help you in the best possible way.

Your Thilda