Instagram is adding another tool to its anti-bullying arsenal. This time, however, Meta is engaging school administrators directly in an effort to speed up responses to safety issues affecting young teens. The company is introducing a new “School Partnership Program” that aims to give teachers and school administrators the ability to intervene when students are experiencing bullying on Instagram.
The program offers schools something that many parents have long dreamed of: a way to respond quickly to messages on the app that directly affect young students. Meta promises that schools that join the program will have “priority” in the moderation queue, and that it will respond to those messages within 48 hours. Schools that join the program will also receive a “partner school” badge for their Instagram account, as well as information on how to use reporting tools and other resources.
However, it doesn’t appear that Meta is hiring additional content moderators to help with these new accelerated reports. When asked about increasing staffing to support the program, an Instagram spokesperson told Engadget that reports from schools will be “expedited” through existing communication channels, and that schools will be able to add “additional context” to their reports.
Meta claims that it has already tested the program in 60 schools and that the first results were “promising.” Middle and high schools in the US can now sign up and join the program’s waiting list.
The pilot program is not the first time Instagram has tried to combat bullying. In 2021, the app introduced a comment restriction feature, and last year it added a stricter “restrict” feature. But while these features can help teens avoid certain types of negative interactions, they still required teens (or their parents) to change their settings. By giving schools more power to report specific incidents of bullying or other bad behavior, Meta offers some hope that schools will be better able to address the behaviors that underlie the phenomenon.
