Instagram’s Moderator Tool: A Ray of Hope for Creators for Safer Livestreaming

Instagram recently announced an addition to the features of the app that can enable the creators to report and turn off comments during their livestreaming sessions. With the increase in the cases of cyber bulling and trolling over the livestreams, Instagram has said that the addition of a ‘moderator’ will help solve a big issue and it would also lead to more engagement.

Enabling a moderator will help in making your live (streaming) a safe space,” said Shubham Singh, and Dhruv Bisht, creators of Instagram channel Funyaasi. Their channel has 102,000 followers, and perform livestreaming sessions twice a month.

The moderation tool will be a great add-on to the livestreaming as trolls and negative comments take a toll on the minds of creators during livestreams. “The trolls have always been a bane of creators on Instagram and other social media channels, said Anand Nair,” cofounder at 4AM Worldwide.

In the last few years, the instances of cyber harassment such as stalking, cyber bullying, physical or even sexual threats have been on a rise. YouTube recently added a similar feature to curb cybercrimes. Through the new feature, creators would not be required to report or remove the viewers, as the moderator would automatically delete inappropriate comment. By this way, creators will be able to stream peacefully and engage more with their genuine audience, keeping negativity at bay.

Live streaming is a very popular feature. Nearly 60-70 per cent of Instagram creators go live regularly. In India, Instagram has a user base of approximately 230 million, making it the largest audience globally. Now, macro-influencers have also picked up livestreaming to engage with both old and new followers.

During Covid-19 lockdown, the number of livestreaming on the platform increased by 60 per cent. A livestreaming contributes to the earning of creators and bridges the gap between a brand and the creators. However, livestreaming is yet to be monetized since the badges has not benefitted the creators yet. A badge feature allows viewers to support creators during a live video. When a viewer buys a badge, the benefit is forwarded directly to the creators.

The addition of the moderation feature is expected to reduce cybercrimes and increase the new possibilities of revenue generation, especially live sales.