Instagram has announced new updates to its platform aimed at protecting its users from abuse.

The Meta-owned social media platform said it wants to make it as “hard as possible” for someone a user has blocked to contact them again.

Now when a user blocks someone, they will also have the option to block other accounts they may have or create, making it more difficult for them to interact with the person that has blocked them, the company said.

Based on Instagram’s test results from this new change, it said users will need to block four million fewer accounts each week as such accounts will now be blocked automatically.

Instagram is also testing out the automatic turning on of its Hidden Words feature, which filters out offensive language, for creator accounts with a large number of followers.

The company said that since the feature’s launch last year, users that enable Hidden Words see 40 per cent fewer comments that might be offensive.

Instagram is also working on improving its filtering to spot and hide more intentional misspellings of offensive terms, such as if someone uses a ‘1’ instead of an ‘i’ when spelling out an offensive word.

Push notifications reminding people to be respectful in DMs when sending a message request to a creator are also being added to users’ accounts.

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