/GettyImages-901895052-ea09407d4fc9473f9d3cc4e99149e79d.jpg "How Social Media Companies Are Trying to Stop Abuse")
Social media companies are trying to crack down on the continuing problem of abuse on their platforms.
Instagram said recently that it would make it easier to prevent unwanted comments and direct messages on the photo and video-sharing social networking service. Users can now automatically filter out offensive content and hide comments and direct message requests from specific users.
“If social media companies do not crack down on abusive messaging, they will only end up with abusive users abusing each other, and nobody actually will consume social media content in a reasonable fashion,” Thomas Roulet, a professor at the University of Cambridge who studies social media problems, told Lifewire in an email interview.
