How To Stop Cyberbullying on Instagram

Learning how to stop cyberbullying on Instagram can help protect your brand and improve your overall experience online. This is especially important for personal brands that rely on their reputation to generate money. 

In this article, we’ll cover the preventive steps for reducing digital bullying. We’ll also share the tools at your disposal on Instagram to reduce the impact of online bullying. You don’t have to be a victim of cyberbullying, and there are strategies to protect yourself.

What Is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying refers to the use of digital communication tools to harass, intimidate, threaten, or harm others. Unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying takes place in online environments, allowing perpetrators to target their victims anonymously or from a distance. 

Here are some of the top examples of online bullying:

• Harassment: This includes sending repeated, abusive, or threatening messages to an individual through email, social media, or messaging apps. 
• Flaming: Posting hostile or inflammatory comments in online forums, chat rooms, or social media platforms to provoke others.
• Exclusion: Exclusion is deliberately excluding someone from online groups, social circles, or events. People do this by spreading rumors or encouraging others to ignore the victim.
• Impersonation: Creating fake profiles or accounts to impersonate and harass someone online. Social media users can do this by posting derogatory or humiliating content under their name.
• Cyberstalking: Engaging in persistent monitoring, surveillance, or tracking of someone’s online activities. This can sometimes frighten or intimidate them.

How To Prevent Cyberbullying on Instagram

Are you wondering how to prevent cyberbullying on social media platforms like Instagram? You can take several steps to reduce the chances of being a victim. Some of these are easy to implement, while others have drawbacks. 

However, being aware of the different strategies can help take preventive measures. 

1. Set Your Account to Private

You can reduce the public visibility of your Instagram account by setting it to private. This provides several advantages for combating bullying, which are as follows:

• Reduced visibility: Private accounts are not visible to the public, and only approved followers can view posts, Stories, and other content. This limits the exposure of personal information and reduces the likelihood of encountering cyberbullies.
• Controlled access: With a private Instagram account, users can control who can follow them and see their posts. Therefore, users can avoid unknown or potentially harmful individuals by approving or denying follow requests. 
• Filtered comments: Instagram allows users with private accounts to filter comments on their posts. Hence, they can block specific keywords, phrases, or emojis commonly associated with bullying or harassment. This provides a safer and more positive commenting environment.
• Direct messaging control: Private accounts can control who can send them Instagram direct messages. Users can choose only to receive messages from approved followers to reduce the risk of receiving harassing or abusive messages.
• Increased privacy: Private accounts offer more privacy and security than public accounts. Therefore, users can feel more comfortable sharing personal content and engaging with others. That’s because they know that their audience is mostly trusted followers.

2. Restrict Users

Instagram allows you to place specific restrictions on other users. Most social media sites empower you with tools to help avoid users, and Instagram restrictions are one of these tools. For example, you can stop other users from commenting and harassing your community. 

Alternatively, you can restrict users from sending direct messages to your Instagram. This means you don’t need to receive abusive messages that may detract from your online experience. 

Therefore, take the time to familiarize yourself with the array of features that allow you to place restrictions on users. 

3. Avoid Breaking Instagram Community Guidelines

You may become the target of digital bullying on social media sites when you break the rules of the platform. Therefore, you must understand and follow the Instagram community guidelines to avoid angering audiences. 

The Instagram guidelines are a good roadmap for how to act properly on the platform. 

Therefore, you should take some time to read the guidelines for yourself and revisit the page often. This allows you to see updates to the guidelines that will help you avoid a ban or suspension.

Cyberbullying Statistics

Do you want to learn more about the different cyberbullying statistics? This will help you understand the scope of the problem. Here are the top digital bullying statistics according to the Annapolis Police Department for your consideration:

• 42% of kids are victims of cyberbullying, and almost one in four have had it happen to them more than once.
• 9 out of 10 middle school students have had their feelings hurt online.
• Instagram is the social media site where most young people report experiencing bullying. Around 42% of those surveyed experienced harassment on the platform.
• Nearly a third of tween victims of bullying said the incidents affected their friendships, while 13 percent said it affected their physical health.
• Two-thirds of the victims of bullying said that it had a negative impact on how they felt about themselves.

These statistics indicate the severe negative effects of cyberbullying. Therefore, if you are responsible for a community on social media platforms, take steps to reduce it. 

For example, you can monitor the comment section and look for negative users. Ideally, you should remove abusive users to keep your community tidy. 

How Instagram Cyberbullying Can Affect Businesses

Businesses and personal accounts are not immune from Instagram bullying, which can dramatically harm progress.

Experiencing cyberbullying on IG makes it difficult to grow your account since you must put up with negative or toxic energy and followers. 

Nevertheless, there are several reasons why customers and followers in any niche engage in bullying. 

For example, they may not like the quality of the products you sell or have issues with your content. Users may feel they need to seek revenge by committing a form of bullying to voice their opinions. 

As a business, you shouldn’t put up with bullying. After all, it can negatively affect your state of mind and those who work for your social media companies. 

Top 3 Steps to Take After Your Business Faces Cyberbullying

You can take several actions when members of the Instagram community engage in bullying. Here are the top three for your consideration:

1. Report to customer support: You can contact Instagram customer support and report the problem. Ideally, you will share specific details about the cyberbullying to help customer support take action. This includes screenshots and other details that provide context. Also, you may have to wait until a user engages in cyberbullying multiple times before customer support can take action. 
2. Warn users: You can reach out to the troublemakers and ask them to stop. This can sometimes be enough to make people reconsider their actions. Also, when many members of the audience are at fault, you can send a message out to the community. This shines a spotlight on the problem, and other users may help you police the audience. 
3. Block users: As a last resort, you can block Instagram accounts to reduce their ability to interact with your community. Ideally, you will do this after warning them so they can change their actions. Note that blocking Instagram users is a reversible action.

Is Instagram Cyberbullying a Big Problem?

Yes, cyberbullying on social media apps like Instagram is a big problem. That’s because it’s easy for users to express their negative emotions at a distance. 

Furthermore, in many cases, the bullies don’t face any penalties for their actions. Users can also simply create another account when they receive a ban. 

Therefore, it’s important to understand the steps to take how to stop cyberbullying on Instagram. You can always take action to stop or reduce the chances of bullies getting the best of you. This can help your community feel safer while interacting with your brand. 

Now that you know how to stop cyberbullying on social media, do you want to focus on growing your Instagram followers? Plixi can help with our in-house algorithm and extensive IG influencer network. 

We have a proven track record, and you can be the next successful customer. So what are you waiting for? Start growing and gaining Instagram followers today.